


The Final Eight

by FernWithy



Series: Narrow Path [1]
Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-30
Updated: 2014-12-17
Packaged: 2017-11-27 04:26:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 42,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/658001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FernWithy/pseuds/FernWithy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Delly Cartwright watches the Games unfold as her oldest friend is among the final eight tributes fighting to survive, and the media descend on District Twelve. (Edited for continuity with the "End of the World" series. Minor edits.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delly Cartwright watches as the 74th Hunger Games reach the last eight tributes, and her oldest friend, Peeta Mellark, lies dying in the mud.

**Part One: Mandatory Viewing**   


**Chapter One**  
  
Late night viewing of the Hunger Games isn't mandatory, but it's available and it plays constantly in the square, though the volume is turned down somewhat. I can see the light flickering through my front window every night, and, if I twist around just right, I could actually watch from my room if I wanted to.  
  
I don't.  
  
If things are bad enough to be watching through the night, I don't want to be alone for it.  
  
Instead, when my parents and my brother go to sleep, I get dressed again and slip outside.  
  
The square is more crowded than it has been for a couple of days. After the explosion this afternoon, they're down to eight tributes, and Peeta and Katniss are still among them. That means that the reporters are back on the trains now, rushing out to interview us.  
  
While there's still time.  
  
Because as of now, Peeta is delirious with fever, lying in a mud bank by a wide creek. Katniss is curled up in the leaves, bleeding from her ear, oblivious to everything around her. The other six are engaged in little more interesting than napping, though little Rue from District Eleven, who's allied with Katniss -- smart girl -- is searching for her desperately. Every now and then, they cut to her, singing her song to the birds. The boy from One, Marvel, has set several noise traps, but she sees them and steers clear of them. Earlier, he climbed a tree and secured something in it, but either the Gamemakers don't know what it is, or they're saving it for one of their rancid "surprises."  
  
Most of the programming is recaps and analysis at this point. After the first night, the Capitol tries to make sure nothing much happens at night, while citizens are asleep. There's filler coverage from time to time. Tonight, it's mostly about the Capitol Games parties, where the fan clubs for the various tributes celebrate their favorites. Katniss's fan club seems to be eagerly awaiting a reunion with Peeta. Peeta's fans are more subdued, but one girl is speculating that he's faking his illness, and means to suddenly emerge like an avenging hero. She has helpfully made a cartoon about it. It's terrible. Every now and then, they show the mentors. Haymitch seems to be meeting with a lot of people. Mr. Mellark says that he's actually a very good mentor, no matter what the district thinks. I hope he's right.  
  
"Delly?"  
  
I look up at the sound of my name, and find Primrose Everdeen sitting alone on a bench. She is watching the screen with wide eyes. She's been there since this afternoon, when Katniss fired an arrow into a sack of apples and blew up most of the supplies the Careers had been hoarding. "Any news?" I ask her.  
  
She shakes her head. "I don't think Katniss can hear at all. The birds have been close enough that she should have woken up, but she didn't even turn." Prim bites her lip. "Maybe it's just ringing. Sometimes we have miners come in after explosions, and their ears are ringing. It passes."  
  
She doesn't look hopeful. I budge her over a little and sit down beside her. I don't have anything comforting to say. The blood doesn't look good. "But no one's near her?"  
  
Prim shakes her head. "They were way out in the woods looking for her."  
  
She quiets as the screen switches away from the commentators and back to the arena. Rue has climbed a tree beside the lake and is squinting into the darkness. She moves along a branch and climbs to another tree, further into the forest.  
  
"No, stay," Prim says to her, miserably. "You're almost there."  
  
But Rue can't hear Prim any more than Katniss can hear Rue. She unknowingly moves back toward the Careers' night camp, where the crazy girl from Two is on guard, sharpening her knives on a flat stone while the two boys sleep. They quickly show the others. The redheaded girl from Five -- Finch -- who, like Katniss, has been sleeping in trees, is warily awake, looking down into the grassy valley. The boy from Eleven, the huge one called Thresh, has fallen asleep beside a trap he's made for anyone who thinks of coming after him.  
  
And then there's Peeta. His eyes are open in the moonlight -- the camera catches the glint of them -- but he isn't awake in any meaningful sense. He's muttering something that might be either "Katniss" or "Kill me." No one responds to either.  
  
I am waiting for the blow to fall. That is why I can't sleep. I don't want to be sleeping comfortably, then wake up to find out that my best friend, a boy I used to pretend was my brother, died alone in the mud overnight. I'd never go to sleep again.  
  
"He needs medicine," Prim says. "Mom says he'll need antibiotics. And someone to give them to him. Do you think Katniss will find him?"  
  
I don't answer this, either. We both know that one of us, at least, is going to end this in mourning. Instead, I say, "How much would it be, do you think?"  
  
"More than we can get." Prim looks anxiously at the screen again. "Mr. Mellark said he'd mortgage the bakery to sponsor Peeta and get him his medicine -- on the sponsor boards, you know?" She nods toward the booths, hardly ever used, where people can communicate from the Districts to the mentors about sponsorship. District Twelve's are usually pretty pristine, but this year, they've managed to get a little bit together. For Katniss. Prim sighs. "But Haymitch said that what he could get wouldn't cover half of it. I was there when he called."  
  
I frown. "Why?"  
  
"I found the right medicine in a Capitol magazine. He wanted me there in case he read it wrong. He didn't."  
  
"I mean, you've been spending a lot of time with the Mellarks."  
  
"I just… I feel better when we're all together in this. Don't you?"  
  
"Yeah. I guess so."  
  
"Anyway, Haymitch told him that it wouldn't matter if he sold the bakery. The truth is, you could probably sell all of District Twelve, and they'd make sure it wasn't enough."  
  
"Haymitch got medicine for Katniss. Maybe -- "  
  
Prim shakes her head. "The burn ointment is cheaper than what Peeta needs. I've been watching the boards. It was expensive, but not _that_ expensive." What she doesn't add, but we both acknowledge, is that Haymitch has seemed more interested in helping Katniss than helping Peeta. I hope this is because it's what Peeta asked him to do.  
  
The commentators return to the screen, after thoughtfully watching the live feed of the Tributes. Claudius Templesmith, who must sleep less than I do lately, says again, "There you have them. Our final eight tributes. Two from District Two, two from District Eleven, and two from District Twelve... very unusual, wouldn't you say?"  
  
The skinny announcer who helps with the graveyard shift tells him nervously that so much of the final pool being made up of outlying districts -- not to mention in intact district teams -- is, indeed, unusual, and suggests that we in Eleven and Twelve must be beside ourselves with excitement. Then they go into another recap of the romance angle that Peeta has been using. The Capitol is eating it up. Capitol citizens at late night viewing parties are interviewed, and all gush about Peeta's true love, and how they hope Katniss will realize her true feelings... which have so far been expressed by dropping a tracker jacker nest on him, but that doesn't seem to stop the speculation. A few women express a hope that Katniss will become pregnant (presumably sometime after her ear stops bleeding and Peeta manages to wake up from a near coma). "Then if she lives, it could be like they both lived!" Claudius reminds the audience that, unfortunately, certain things are medically prevented inside the arena.  
  
"I'm sure that's exactly what they're trying to prevent," someone says bitterly behind me. I turn to find Mr. Mellark, looking exhausted, carrying his valise. He has been staying with his oldest son Jonadab since the first wave of reporters left. There was no screaming fight, and he goes in to the bakery every day for business, but he and Mrs. Mellark aren't speaking.  
  
Of course, only their closest neighbors and their sons would notice the difference. Edder says it's because Mrs. Mellark said something bad to Peeta on his way out of town. Edder's opinion is that his father is overreacting ("as usual -- she probably didn't mean it in a bad way"), but he won't tell me what she's supposed to have said, which tells me that it had to be pretty bad. From what I can tell, Jonadab isn't speaking to his mother, either.  
  
Prim gives him a sad smile, and he returns it. She says, "No news, Mr. Mellark."  
  
He nods. "No news is good news. The reporters will be coming back tomorrow."  
  
The bakery door opens and Mrs. Mellark comes out, dressed in her nightgown and bathrobe, a night-wrap around her hair. She stands quietly on the porch, with her eyes cast down, then takes a deep breath and comes down to stand beside her husband.  
  
"You're coming back?"  
  
"They'll want to know how he became such a romantic," Mr. Mellark says, not paying attention to Prim and me. "So you and I are putting on a good show." With that, he goes into the bakery.  
  
Mrs. Mellark stays with us for a few minutes, not talking, then slowly unwinds the wrap from her hair and lets it fall loose in the pretty blond curls she passed on to Peeta (which are the bane of his existence). She takes a deep breath and goes inside after her husband.  
  
Prim and I don't know what to say to each other after this, so we just watch the huge screen for a while. Rue eventually gives up her search for Katniss and curls up in the branches of a tree. Everyone falls asleep, including Prim, who leans against my shoulder, looking young and pale. I wake her and start walking her back to the Seam, but halfway there, Gale Hawthorne, looking frantic, finds her, and says that her mother woke up to find her gone and is half out of her mind. He carries her the rest of the way home, and I go back to the square.  
  
The rest of the night is just another recap of the early parts of the games, including the Tribute Parade (with the inevitable cut-in shot of Prim jumping up when she sees Katniss and yelling, with fierce pride, "That's my sister!"; it is apparently another favorite of Capitol viewers). Sleep finally ambushes me while they're replaying the death of the boy from District Ten -- a horrendous fall on a steep slope that he'd have been hard pressed to control even if he hadn't been lamed. I see the beginning of the fall, but am out completely before he hits the rock.  
  
I dream I am in a mine somewhere, and Peeta is lost. Katniss is trying to find him, but he's hiding from her, which makes her very upset. She gives me a hardhat with a light on it (a flame, like the old ones they have in the coal museum) and sends me down into the depths to find him for her. I'm still calling for him when I wake up.  
  
There is a warm hand on my shoulder, and it is Mr. Mellark. He still looks tired.  
  
I sit up. "News?"  
  
He shakes his head. "No, Delly. No news. But reporters. They're here. They're talking to Mrs. Mellark and me first. But they'll want to talk to Peeta's friends. Do you think you could gather up a few?"  
  
"Sure."  
  
"And Delly -- I'm sorry about what you saw last night."  
  
"It's okay."  
  
"No. I have a bad habit of saying things I shouldn't in front of people who shouldn't hear them. But please... I don't know what they're allowed to see in the arena, but if the tributes are allowed to hear -- please don't say anything that would upset him."  
  
I nod, understanding, though I think we all know that the tributes won't hear a thing. I think Mr. Mellark is just convincing himself that he has one more chance to talk to his son, so he won't go crazy in front of the cameras. I wonder how often Peeta has had to listen to his parents snipe at one another. He's mostly talked to me about his own conflicts with his mother, but it can't be easy living in a house with that marriage, either.  
  
He goes back inside, through what seems a full parade of cameras and crew, one of whom turns a camera briefly on me before being turned away by his boss. I go off to get as many of Peeta's friends as I can find.  
  
I wonder what they will ask us. I imagine they might want to know what Peeta was thinking when the girl from District Eight begged him to kill her. I could answer that. We watched a boy with an injury like that die in agony over four days last year. Peeta said then that he hoped if anything like that ever happened to him, someone would have the kindness to finish the job. It still practically killed him to do it. The screen only showed it for a minute, him biting on the sleeve of his jacket, trying not to scream -- he couldn't afford for the Careers to think he was weak -- but I'd think anyone could see that he was just about crazy from it. Then he got himself under control. You could see him do it. And he went back and put on an act. I've seen him do this before, mostly when his parents are fighting and he suddenly has to greet someone cheerfully in the bakery. He's very good at it.  
  
On second thought, maybe it's not a good idea if they ask about what a good actor Peeta is.  
  
Maybe they'll ask where a baker's son learned to use a knife well enough to duel the girl from District Two to a draw, and use her as a hostage to earn his way into their pack. This was mostly from his wrestling (the team would know his moves). The other time he used the knife, on the girl from Eight, I know exactly where he learned it. His aunt is a butcher. He knows exactly how to make the killing blow quick and merciful. I don't think they'll want to hear about that.  
  
Maybe they'll want to know what he's like in school, or what kind of best friend he is. I am happy to answer any of those questions.  
  
Madge Undersee is going to be interviewed anyway, as the mayor's daughter, and she says that she doesn't want to look like she's taking sides, since she's possibly the only person in town who's friends with both Peeta and Katniss. I ask if she means to mention the pin. She says that her mother has absolutely forbidden it.  
  
Cyprian Murphy, whose family owns a raucous pub off the square, is the first to join in; he deeply admires Peeta, and has to be cautioned against mentioning the extra tesserae Peeta took on television. I also dig up Siah Greenville, who is on the wrestling team with Peeta, and he agrees to gather up the rest of them. Most aren't close to Peeta, but he gets along with everyone, and they all think of themselves as his friends. Jemima Kingery was his first date, which I figure will interest people following the love story angle, though I warn her not to play it up too much. She's excited to say what a good date he was, though positively giddy to be able to add -- truthfully -- that he'd spoken glowingly of Katniss Everdeen in the course of it. "I could help out!" she says. Apparently, she's not too broken up about things not quite working between them. By the time I've gotten this far, Peeta's other friends are coming out of the woodwork, having heard about it, and by the time we get back to the square, there are about twenty of us. The camera crews look stunned, and just start grabbing people at random.  
  
Mr. Mellark pulls me forward and says, "Delly here is about the closest thing Peeta has to a sister. I had a houseful of boys, myself." He shakes his head fondly at Edder and Jonadab, who are sitting with a perfectly presented Mrs. Mellark on the front porch.  
  
I am grabbed at by at least three producers, finally won by a woman with vine tattoos on her head and rings in her nose, and she sits me down under a tree.  
  
"Get the leaf shadows on her," the cameraman says. "It'll hide a little of that baby fat."  
  
"Don't you worry about him," the tattooed lady says. "You're just beautiful, sweetheart. We need to put some makeup on you, just for the lights."  
  
The lights apparently require a _lot_ of makeup, because it's almost fifteen minutes later when the reporter actually appears and sits down beside me.  
  
I glance up at the big screen, which is behind her (the sound has been turned off) and see Katniss wandering through the woods, swatting at her left ear. This is intercut with Rue, who is running from someone, I think. There are no shots of Peeta.  
  
"...of Katniss Everdeen?"  
  
I blink. "Katniss?" I ask.  
  
"Yes. Your friend seems very taken with her."  
  
"Well, yeah. Everyone respects Katniss. Peeta especially. Peeta's really a great guy. He -- "  
  
"He told Caesar Flickerman that he's always had a crush on her. Is that true?"  
  
"Well, yes." I realize that this is going to be focused on one thing only, so I smile and say, "He sometimes forgot his notebook in school, and if I loaned him mine, it would come back with pictures of Katniss drawn in it..."  
  
There's very little chance to talk about Peeta, per se, which annoys me, but they do ask to see those drawings, as Mr. Mellark has shown them the cake sketchbook and they know it's worth their time. Peeta's drawings will be all over the airwaves tonight. That's something. When I finish up, I look over at the bakery, where Mr. and Mrs. Mellark are sitting on a porch swing (which must have been brought in as a prop, because I've never seen it before), cuddling and talking about their bright-eyed boy. I see another army of media people coming up from the Seam, and I guess they've been interviewing Katniss's people. Mrs. Everdeen, Prim, and Gale are with them. I hope Gale didn't say anything foolish about who Katniss might really love. Madge says he's _not_ Katniss's boyfriend, at least as far as she knows, but he sure acts like it.  
  
My tattooed friend directs the whole battalion into places around the square, and sets up family and friends to watch the games. I've seen this in past Games. They like to get shots of people reacting. Every year, they get one or two families watching their children die. Or maybe they get all of them, but only one or two made good television.  
  
"Now, just act natural!" the tattooed woman calls out, then the sound is turned back on.  
  
Katniss has apparently gotten her hearing back in one ear, because she keeps tipping it up. She eventually lands back in the camp she and Rue shared. At first, she doesn't seem especially concerned at Rue's absence. She cleans herself up and eats quite a lot, then climbs a tree to wait. On-the-street interviews in the Capitol joke about her appetite. She gets more agitated as the afternoon goes on, and finally gets down.  
  
The reporters are in the other districts now, and we see Finch's teacher, Clove's and Marvel's families, and even the orchard workers in District Eleven, who are singing to the mockingjays, just like Rue was last night.  
  
They cut to Rue. It's late afternoon now, and the sun is playing through the trees like knives. She's been trapped in the tree most of the day, too close to where Marvel has been patrolling. She doesn't know that there's a trap nearby, and the Gamemakers only point it out in passing, making me think that they don't know what it's going to do.  
  
She spots motion. It's hard to tell what it is, but whatever it is, she risks singing to the birds again.  
  
The camera cuts to Marvel, who is patrolling the edge of the circle the Careers have laid claim to. Clove and Cato are off on the far side of the circle hunting for Katniss in entirely the wrong place.  
  
Marvel abruptly raises his spear.  
  
I put my hand over my heart, and I see Mrs. Everdeen rush forward toward the screen, but when the camera pulls back, it shows not Katniss, but Rue.  
  
Katniss starts to sing back.  
  
Rue smiles and lets her guard down, the first and last mistake she'll make.  
  
She climbs down to a lower branch, then drops from the tree. She's looking up, walking backward and trying to follow the mockingjays to Katniss. She isn't looking.  
  
They cut to Katniss, who is running wildly toward, then back to Rue.  
  
Gale Hawthorne yells "Watch out!" but it does no good, of course. Gale has spotted it only a fraction of a second before everything happens anyway. Rue steps on an artfully hidden branch, curved into a spring trap. It drops a net on her from above, and she screams, her voice high and childish.  
  
Katniss hears her, screams her name, runs to her... but it's too late. The boy has speared her like a fish, like the handsome tribute, Finnick Odair, did to most of his competition nine years ago. Everyone has tried it since, but this is the first success. Marvel still looks surprised by it when Katniss puts an arrow through his neck. He is dead before he hits the ground, and the field is down to seven. Since he was from District One, which is closer to the Capitol, maybe they had time to talk to his people last night.  
  
The camera stays lovingly on Katniss as she tries not to lose her mind while Rue dies in her arms. It holds close to her while she sings the meadow song (several people here in Twelve sing quietly along, including Prim, Mrs. Everdeen, and the little Hawthorne girl). It even shows her kissing Rue's forehead as she lets go of her life.  
  
The cameras flash briefly on the crowd in District Eleven, then suddenly, the screen is inexplicably taken over by Finch from District Five, who is engaged in a none-too-fascinating foraging run. The commentators treat this as if it may change the course of the games. They point out some poison berries that she doesn't go anywhere near. Then they switch to Thresh, cooking a rabbit, and the District Two tributes looking up at the sound of the cannon, which interrupts a fight with a mutt bear. Then there is a shot of Peeta, who isn't even muttering now.  
  
There's a lot of puzzlement in the square, questions buzzing around about what Katniss is doing that they needed to cut away from. No one has an answer. When they cut back to her, she is still sitting beside Rue. The shot is tighter. There are some white flowers around Rue's head that I didn't notice before; they must have been under the net, which she's been freed from. Katniss stands up and walks away. The camera remains tight on her. She is crying. I doubt she realizes it.  
  
The media crews descend on Prim and Mrs. Everdeen as Katniss wanders off into the woods, looking dazed and confused.  
  
I go back to the bakery, where Mrs. Mellark is leaning against Mr. Mellark, and he seems to be holding her willingly enough, even stroking her hair and saying comforting things. Maybe the storm has passed again. Edder and Jonadab are sitting on the steps. I sit between them, and Jonadab puts his hand on my head and fusses at my hair, the way he used to do with Peeta when Peeta was very small. I hug him with one arm, and reach over with the other to squeeze Edder's hand. The camera crews are running around madly, grabbing everyone who appears to be from the Seam.  
  
Peeta's people are left alone. All he's doing is dying.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Games both unite and divide District Twelve, until Claudius's surprise announcement changes everything.

**Chapter Two**  
I stay with the Mellarks until my brother comes to fetch me back to the shoe store, where Mom is drowning in broken heels. Apparently, the Capitol folks chose their footwear without considering their destination. We are all pressed into duty making repairs. Dad brings the television in, since we're still in mandatory viewing hours (and since he knows I will need to know what's happening with Peeta). Katniss is still wandering around, dazed, with her bow drawn.  
  
"I wonder what she thinks she's hunting," Dad mutters.  
  
"She's hunting those monsters who set the trap for the little girl," Mom says.  
  
No one comments on this. We have seen people hunting other people in the Games before. It happens every year. But it's not generally people we know. District Twelve's tributes have not often lasted long enough to join the hunt. Katniss doesn't look like she could shoot a slow-moving turtle in her current state of mind, though.  
  
There is a cutaway to District One, where the uncle of the boy Katniss shot is waxing eloquent about how he'd built model cars, and created beaten gold jewelry that had sold in the Capitol. No mention is made of his talent for spearing little girls caught in nets.  
  
They cut back to Claudius Templesmith, who muses that this was the end for District One, often heavy betting favorites. This segues into a feature on gambling in the Capitol. Peeta, it transpires, is a dark horse favorite among people who think he'll just hang on there in the mud while the other five kill each other.  
  
When they return to the studio, Claudius has invited a doctor to speak about Peeta's injuries. I stop working to listen and watch; Mom doesn't correct me.  
  
A small, holographic model of Peeta's body is projected up above the desk, crouched as he was during the brief fight with Cato. A sword appears floating beside it.  
  
"The wound should have been fatal," the doctor says, "but if you look closely at the footage, you'll see that, at the last minute, Peeta lost his footing just enough to turn his leg." The studio is replaced by footage from the arena, showing Peeta and Cato. Peeta chases Katniss off, then turns to fight while Cato calls him a traitor and accuses him of, well, not thinking with his brain. The sound isn't on, but I remember that, because I was afraid I was about to see Peeta's head disconnected from his shoulders. He is just armed with a knife.   
  
The footage is slowed down. Peeta blocks the first blow, toward his head, by raising the knife and swiping at Cato's wrist. It catches the upside, and blood starts to flow. Cato then spins, bringing the sword around low, toward Peeta's leg. The doctor stops and circles the sword and Peeta's leg. "If you see here, when Cato initially aimed, Peeta's leg was outstretched, and the blow should have landed on the femoral artery, which would have caused massive bleeding and, almost certainly, a quick death." He edges the tape a few frames further. Peeta loses his balance and moves just slightly, the doctor circles it, then the image is replaced by the model, where the sword comes down in its brutal blow. "But here," he continues, "you see that now, the front of the thigh is presented. There will still be significant blood loss, but not catastrophic blood loss. The angle and strength of the blow indicates that the cut is deep, possibly to the bone, and is almost certainly infected, judging by his condition. There may also be serious nerve damage, but there's no way to know that unless he's conscious."  
  
"Is he a good bet?" Claudius asks jovially.  
  
The doctor shrugs and says, "It depends on how long the Games go on."  
  
I want to reach through the screen and strangle both of them. I reach into the work bin and pull out another shoe to fix.  
  
It's the most information we've had since the original fight, but Peeta is still doing nothing interesting by their standards, so it doesn't last. They cut back to the arena, briefly show Peeta in his mud bank, then go to the District Two tributes, who've found the bloody net where Rue died. They don't know yet that their friend from District One is also dead, though Clove speculates that the second cannon they heard might mean he won't make the rendezvous. Cato snorts and says it was "probably just Loverboy finally figuring out that he's dead." They find the white flowers, which have been pulled up -- I guess the hovercraft they used to lift the bodies must have caught them -- and have a brief snowball fight with them. The camera lingers on Clove, laughing wildly with flower petals in her hair and a knife in her hand.  
  
"We are all insane," Dad says, and there is no particular evidence to the contrary.  
  
Once we make our way through the pile of damaged shoes (we've been taking turns running up to wait on the customers), I ask if I can go back to the square to watch. Mom tells me not to fall asleep out there again, since I have school tomorrow. The reporters have finally relinquished Prim Everdeen, who is wearing a hooded jacket to hide her blond hair, and is huddled on a rock beneath a tree. I sit down on the ground beside her.  
  
She puts her finger to her lips. "Cressida gave me her jacket," she says, pointing to the bald woman with vines tattooed on her head, the one who interviewed me earlier. "She says they've bothered me enough, and everyone's just asking me the same thing over and over anyway."  
  
"What are they asking?"  
  
"If I think Katniss sang to Rue because of me, if she sings me that song... you know."  
  
"Oh."  
  
"The doctor said Peeta might be all right," she ventures.  
  
"I saw."  
  
"I thought that might have been what happened. Cato probably thinks he hit the artery."  
  
"He still needs the medicine, though. I wonder why they don't say that on the broadcast? Maybe some of those sick people betting on him could send him a shot."  
  
Prim says nothing, and I guess I can see why. The longer Peeta lives, the more likely it becomes that it will come down to a final brawl between him and Katniss -- and he is not in brawling shape. She isn't in any psychological state for it, either. I don't know what will happen if it comes down to the two of them.  
  
Katniss comes to the base of a tree and starts to arrange the bags she took from Rue and Marvel, obviously meaning to keep them when she climbs. She looks up from this task when a parachute floats down to her, and frowns at it. I have a moment's wild hope that it is a shot for Peeta and explicit directions to his mud bank, but when she opens it, it's just bread. Not any kind of bread that Peeta's dad makes, though. This is crescent shaped and dark brown, with seeds on it.  
  
Katniss looks at it for a long time, then says, "My thanks to the people of District Eleven." Then she takes it in her hand and climbs high into the tree.  
  
"This is unprecedented," Claudius Templesmith says as the broadcast returns to his studio. "A district gift to a tribute from another district! I wonder how she knew where it came from." He puts his hand to his earpiece, listens, and says, "Ah, yes, of course -- her district partner is a baker's son. Can we show the footage, Amica?" He looks up at the audience, as though this is the only thing they could be thinking of, and brings up video of a large dining hall, where all twenty-four tributes, most now dead, are enjoying a sumptuous looking lunch. He zeroes in on Katniss and Peeta. There is no sound, but they seem to be very friendly with each other, and she is listening to him intently. He is pointing to the different breads in a basket. We've seen this before. The Capitol has liked seeing them together from the start, and this is one of the few pre-Games shots of them outside of the parade.   He looks up, and they smile at each other. The picture freezes. Claudius zooms in to a very grainy shot of the bread, and someone resolves it to a much better shot of the bread in Katniss's hand, which she is breaking off tiny bits of while she watches the sky.  
  
While I am glad to see the happy shot of Peeta, and glad that the Gamemakers seem intent on following his storyline, I don't think he'd be pleased that the generosity of District Eleven has now been subsumed into the love story. Given that they still haven't cut back to District Eleven or spoken to Rue's friends and family, it's actually kind of insulting.  
  
There are quick cuts to all of the tributes. Peeta remains in his mud bank, though he seems almost conscious right now, and is reaching for water. Clove and Cato are sitting back to back, watching the sky. The girl from Five is examining the food she's foraged today. Thresh, from Eleven, is making some kind of paste from the grain in the field when his attention is caught by something above him. Katniss is still in her tree.  
  
The anthem plays, and the deaths of Rue and Marvel are re-run, for those who missed them the last several times. Then Claudius Templesmith says good night, and the mandatory viewing hours are over. The anthem plays again over the grainy shot of Katniss and Peeta and the basket of bread. They cut to a screwball comedy for the half-hour until the late night broadcast begins. It involves a businesswoman from the Capitol and a cowgirl form District Ten who look exactly alike and switch places. I have seen it before. The Capitol girl, after a few mishaps involving cow dung, gets the hang of District Ten and even wins back the other girl's ex-boyfriend. The District Ten girl, who boasted that it couldn't be very hard to live in the Capitol, gets lost and almost wrecks the other girl's business.  
  
Prim sighs. "I should go home before Mom sends Gale to get me."  
  
"If you want to stay by the square," I offer, "you can stay at my house. Your mom, too."  
  
She shakes her head. "It's better to be home. If anything happens, Haymitch will call the mayor, and the mayor will come find us. We better be where he thinks we are." She starts to take off her borrowed jacket, then thinks better of it. "If you see Cressida, tell her I'll give her jacket back tomorrow."  
  
I watch the comedy alone, not paying attention to it. By the time it's over, Edder Mellark has come out to sit with me. He is no more a boyfriend than Peeta is, but I have never thought of him as a brother. He puts his arm around me, more to get comfort than give it, I think. I hug him back, and the late night coverage starts. There are re-caps, and the doctor is back, still not mentioning the medicine Peeta obviously needs. Then someone chases down Finnick Odair to get his response to Rue's death. He doesn't even bother not to look disgusted when they ask how he feels about someone finally succeeding with his tactics. He's always so nice on television, and he's even known to be friends with Haymitch, which says something about him. It's hard to imagine him doing what he did in the Games. An older man points impatiently to his watch, which gives Finnick an opportunity to tell the reporter that he has to go. Haymitch is up next, extolling Katniss's virtues.  
  
Ed sits up straight and brushes brutally at his face. "I should get sleep," he says. "School. I can't believe we have to go to school."  
  
Normally, this would be a complaint about not getting time off, but I think Ed is quite sincere. He and Peeta don't get along, but they are brothers, and I don't think he's likely to concentrate much on the various uses of coal by-products right now. He kisses the top of my head, then goes back to the bakery. I watch for a few more minutes, then go home when it becomes obvious that the doctor and his little model are all we're going to hear about Peeta tonight.  
  
I can't sleep in my bed, and finally curl up by my window, where I can see the screen. They are re-playing the security footage with the bread. I fall asleep watching Peeta laugh silently.  
  
The morning is incongruously sunny and cheerful, the sort of day that usually would occasion a great deal of joking around on the way to school. No one is joking, though. Everyone I see has eyes cast down. Clothes are worn indifferently, hair left in tangled messes. Usually, by this point in the Games, we've already learned the worst, and are trying to get better. Having hope -- even thin hope -- for one of our friends is somehow more agonizing, because it could be crushed at any minute.  
  
When I get to school, the main corridor is crowded because there is a space blocked off for a camera crew. I see Cressida, and she has the jacket she lent Prim slung over her shoulder, so I clearly don't need to deliver the message. Still, I head toward her, to see what she and her two cameramen are filming.  
  
Each year, the school puts whatever pictures it has of the tributes up on the wall for the duration of the Games. After, their final official school photos are hung from a wire that stretches out along the hall, with their birth and death dates, and some favorite quote ("Reach for the sky!" is a popular one). Most people don't look at them, but Cressida and her cameramen are looking closely. They are also scanning the blackboards that have been put up around Katniss and Peeta's pictures, where friends can leave messages about them. Peeta's side is filled with cartoons (one, appropriating Cato's derisive nickname, shows him beating Cato in a wrestling match, with the scoreboard reading, "Loverboy wins again"). There are a few cartoons on Katniss's side, including one showing her aiming an arrow at a flying heart that says "Peeta," but here, the messages are more serious. People offering support to Prim, mostly, and writing "Katniss can do anything."   
  
One of Cressida's cameramen comes to get her and points to a poem that I think is freshly written. It has a photograph of Katniss's mockingjay pin, which means it can only have come from Madge Undersee. The cameraman runs his hand down it diagonally. Cressida stares, looking astounded, then brusquely says, "Let's skip that one." She moves on.  
  
I get close enough to read. The poem is not going to win any literary awards, and might even be mildly seditious, though really no more than the everyday complaining that even the Capitol doesn't bother to prosecute. Certainly nothing that ought to have shocked Cressida or her cameraman.  
  
 _If we give tribute to strength,_ _  
 _then Katniss speaks for us all._  
 _Until valor dies, and courage fails,_  
 _she stands for the wretched ones_  
 _whose voices reach the Capitol now._  
 _From her bow the arrow burns!__  
  
I try to figure out what upset them, then remember the diagonal slash of the cameraman's hand. I read the first word of the first row, then the second of the second, and so on.  
  
 _If Katniss dies, the Capitol burns!_  
  
I turn and see Madge standing in the shadows. She raises her clenched fist, then disappears toward her first class. I'm not sure how I feel. Madge is supposed to be Peeta's friend, too.  
  
The teachers try and maintain some kind of normal rhythm during the day, as they always do during the Games. Other than the quick quiz to make sure we watched yesterday, our classes are unchanged. We have been reading a play called _The Last Londoners_ in our literature class. Izzarel Tarpley has taken over Peeta's part (a boy named Jack who doesn't want to take the American transport out of his drowning city and ends up jumping out the window into the roiling floodwaters), and he is terrible. Katniss doesn't take this class -- there are no kids from the Seam in classes like literature and art, which is stupid, but an expected part of life in Twelve -- so she's not missed in it, but her empty desk is rather acutely present in math. I sit with Madge at lunch, but she doesn't discuss her poem, or anything else.  
  
By the end of the day, the school officials have figured out that the poem is more than average bellyaching and erased it, but not before half the school has drawn pictures of the mockingjay pin, with varying degrees of talent. Some have just drawn mockingjays in general, and the effect is a flock of chalk birds flying through the hall. They have even taken over Peeta's side of the board. One has landed on his shoulder in the wrestling cartoon. No one seems inclined to erase the birds.  
  
I walk home with Ed. He holds my hand. He's never done this before, but it feels perfectly natural. When we get to the square, people are starting to gather for the mandatory viewing hours, which will start soon. "She's got the bird," he says. "We should have sent something with Peeta."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"No idea. I'm not good at that. We sent him with nothing. He's got friends, but they're all rooting for _her_."  
  
I let go of his hand and go to the store to help Dad for a little while. There's no homework during the Games -- nothing is supposed to interfere with the viewing -- but I still have my chores, and I get them done quickly. I hear noise out in the square, but I don't pay attention until there is actually a scream.  
  
I look up at Dad, who seems surprised.  
  
I run out.  
  
A knot of people has gathered in the middle of the square, egging on a dust cloud in the middle. I ask a man what's happening, and he just says, "Looks like they figured out they can't both of 'em win."  
  
I hear the scream again:  
  
"Gale! Stop!"  
  
I push my way through the crowd just in time to be splashed with blood as Ed's fist connects with Gale Hawthorne's face. I grab hold of him and drag him backward. Prim has jumped onto Gale's back and is trying to keep him away. Ed has about forty pounds on Gale and several years of wrestling training, but Gale doesn't exactly fight by wrestling rules. And frankly, neither of them looks like they're willing to observe the niceties right now.  
  
"Let go, Delly!" Ed growls.  
  
"I will not!"  
  
Gale manages to free himself from Prim, and grabs a rock from the green. Prim hits his wrist to make him drop it. "He wants your sister to die," Gale says.  
  
"Of course he does, if it means his brother lives," Prim says grimly.  
  
"He could have volunteered, if he wasn't so spineless."  
  
Ed rips himself out of my hands and goes after Gale again, but Gale ducks out of the way and Ed ends up face down in the dirt.  
  
I get between them before Gale can run back into the fight. He's already beaten Ed a few times over less important things, and he doesn't look like he's going to stop at a broken tooth this time. "Stop it," I say. "Both of you, right now. They're both alive, and we're all District Twelve."  
  
Astonishingly, Gale backs off, and Ed doesn't push it. He just turns over and sits up, wiping at blood on his face. He won't meet my eyes. Prim, none too gently, maneuvers Gale away. I can't hear her, but she looks cross.  
  
The anthem blares from the speakers (a bit more loudly than usual, I think), and the coverage begins. It opens with Katniss sitting by a smoky fire, cooking birds and glaring aggressively into the woods.  
  
"Seems our girl on fire is trying to smoke out her opponents," Claudius says. "Unfortunately, they're a good distance away." The scene cuts to Cato and Clove, who are planning an elaborate trap for Thresh, then to Thresh, who is holding a token of some sort, made from twigs. He crushes it suddenly and looks up at the camera like he might reach through the screen and murder whoever happens to be on the other side. The girl from Five is looking for food by the lake. She looks at a bunch of berries, frowns at them, and moves on. Peeta is still in the mud.  
  
Since none of the tributes is doing anything especially entertaining, the coverage moves to the Capitol. Haymitch is said to be in negotiations with sponsors, so they can't interview him, but they interview Effie Trinket, who talks up both Peeta and Katniss with great enthusiasm. She's asked how Katniss responded to Peeta's confession of love for her on Caesar's show. "Oh, you know young girls," Effie says lightly. "She was surprised. And delighted, of course. Peeta is a wonderful boy."  
  
Cressida's footage from the school comes next, with Katniss's mockingjay all over the walls. The poem isn't shown. A perky reporter stands by the slag heap at the mine (for some reason Capitol people like seeing their reporters standing beside garbage rocks) and talks about how the District is supporting its tributes. They've dug up old school photographs of both of them, and even found one they appeared in together, though it was completely accidental. It was one of Peeta's wrestling matches, and Katniss can be seen in a shadow in the background, holding her books protectively over her chest. Oddly, and probably coincidentally, she seems to be watching Peeta intently. Much is made of this by the commentators. There is more grainy security footage from their training, including soundless shots on the roof the night before the games, and grabbing each other's hands in the chariot as they headed out. A lip reader is brought in as they show footage from after the parade. Peeta, he says, has told Katniss that flames suit her. Then she kisses his cheek.  
  
People on the street are interviewed. They want Katniss and Peeta to live happily ever after.  
  
I expect that, when they go back to the studio, Claudius will remind everyone that there can only be one winner, but instead he says, "We may have a little surprise coming, friends. We'll have to wait and see."  
  
Surprises in the Games are rarely happy, and my stomach feels tied in knots.  
  
After this, they go to footage from District Two, where Clove and Cato are played as longtime friends who played together as children, though pictures of this are noticeably lacking. Their families are shown having a meal together. I wonder where they're going with this.  
  
They cut back to Katniss, staring at her smoky fire and cooking birds. She looks tired and ill. Peeta, by the creek, is muttering her name over and over. Someone has put a microphone near him somewhere, because the audio is much clearer.  
  
"Sorry about Gale," Prim says, sitting down beside me. "I sent him back to Mom. He's mad because of the cousin business."  
  
"Cousin business?"  
  
"They decided he's going to be her cousin now. Because of the story." She points at the screen. "He's not our cousin."  
  
"So I gathered."  
  
"I'm sure Peeta didn't mean to cause trouble."  
  
"I'm not. He's always liked her. That's not just a story."  
  
Prim shrugs. "He helped her once. I think she's afraid of liking him."  
  
This is a stunning thought -- first that helping someone would cause fear, and second that there was some secret action that Peeta hadn't told me about. But I don't have time to answer, because there are legal experts on television now, talking about Claudius's "surprise." They won't reveal it, but several say that the Gamemakers are "skating up to the edge of the law." One says that "This can only work if it's attached particularly to the districts." Another is ostentatiously scanning the Treaty of the Treason.  
  
Claudius Templesmith listens to his earpiece with the air of a man waiting to see if the world is about to be hit by an asteroid. He looks up dramatically, and says, "Ladies and gentlemen, we have an announcement. You will hear it with the remaining tributes."  
  
They go back to the arena, splitting the screen into five sections: Katniss, Peeta, Cato and Clove, the girl from Five, and Thresh. In the center, we see the studio. Claudius's voice covers all of it.  
  
They've changed the rules. If two tributes from the same district survive, they will both be victors.  
  
There is dead silence in the square.  
  
Mrs. Everdeen walks toward the screen, her hands up as if to touch the picture of Katniss. Mr. and Mrs. Mellark are staring at it, uncomprehending. Prim's hands go to her throat.  
  
On the screen, Cato and Clove high five each other and shout "Go, Two!" Thresh looks furiously at the sky. The girl from Five doesn't react. Peeta's eyes flutter open.  
  
And high in a tree, Katniss Everdeen calls out, her voice full of hope and agony, "Peeta!"


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Claudius's announcement causes elation -- and conflict -- in District Twelve.

**Chapter Three**  
Katniss claps her hands over her mouth, looking alarmed, and I realize even before the commentators point it out that yelling in the arena could have been a very foolish move. Luckily, Clove and Cato are still celebrating rather loudly at their camp, and Thresh is too far away. Finch hears and looks up, but just settles onto her branch for the night. She is shivering in the cold. She very clearly couldn't care less about hunting down Katniss _or_ Peeta.  
  
Katniss moves to get down, then stops and looks up at the sky, letting the moonlight bathe her face. Her expression is hard to read -- on the one hand, she looks like she's trying to look ecstatic. On the other, she looks genuinely happy and grateful. She pauses on the branch, then her odd expression fades and she sits back against the trunk.  
  
"Smart girl," Claudius says. "She knows it would be impossible to find him at night, and dangerous to be out and about. She'll be more likely to be able to help him if she's rested and she can see."  
  
The silence in the square finally breaks, and a hum of interested conversation begins. Prim grabs my hand and smiles. "She'll save him," she says. "I know she will."  
  
I squeeze her hand. I believe her.  
  
I doubt anyone is really paying attention to the rest of the mandatory viewing, at least not any more than will be necessary to pass tomorrow's quiz. I barely register the legal experts coming back half an hour later, or Haymitch being interviewed in a restaurant with a few other victors, saying that it's a great idea. One of the other victors says it's a little overdue. People in the Capitol are practically dancing in the streets.  
  
People in District Twelve _are_ dancing in the streets. Someone has pulled out a fiddle, and Mrs. Everdeen has grabbed hold of Mrs. Mellark and is spinning her around. As Mrs. Mellark and Mrs. Everdeen cordially loathe one another on most occasions, this by itself shows the miraculous nature of the announcement. Prim grins widely and runs over to dance with Mr. Mellark. The cameras are here, and I see Cressida and her cameramen filming us, but they look like they're having fun as well. Cressida has, wisely, taken off her high-heels and is dancing barefoot around the square as she directs.  
  
I dance with several people in a circle, from town and the Seam, and end up kissing Ed under the willow until Jonadab throws cold water on us then drags me out to dance again. At one point, I am actually dancing with Gale, though he's quickly swept off with a Seam girl. The laughter and dancing are wild, maybe a little crazy, and maybe premature. But the idea that we could have them both back is wild and a little bit crazy as well. Katniss will save Peeta. No one doubts this. Then they just have to outlast the other four. It's possible. We could have them back.  
  
Cressida doesn't need to set up interviews -- everyone's feelings are obvious. She catches Prim yelling, "Thank you! Thank you!" It's broadcast live. On screen, District Two also seems joyful. It feels like we're all dancing together, though at least one of the districts will end up heartbroken, even with the new rule. Even the Capitol seems full of high spirits. We see children on the street with sparklers. In the background, they point out Haymitch, standing with Chaff, smiling. He looks clean, put together, and sober. Mr. Mellark either find this funny or joyful -- maybe both -- because he laughs to the sky and toasts Haymitch with an invisible glass.  
  
After the broadcast, we all drift home. I lie awake for a while, thinking vaguely that it would be nice if it could be like this all the time in District Twelve, with no town or Seam. I fall asleep late, and have trouble waking up for school in the morning.  
  
Ed has drawn Katniss's mockingjay on his tee shirt. He's not as talented as Peeta, but he's better than most people. He gets requests from other people to draw it on their clothes or their skin. He says he probably shouldn't have kissed me last night. I roll my eyes and tell him we were all a little crazy. Then I kiss him again, and he doesn't exactly object.  
  
The principal, Mr. Durigan, interrupts us with the very welcome announcement that our first classes are cancelled today -- we're to gather with our years in the gym to watch the live broadcast. Ed and I split up. He goes to sit with the other Eighteens, and I sit between Madge Undersee and Barsha Carroll among the Sixteens. Madge is, for Madge, giddy, which means she actually manages a conversation for nearly five minutes before going quiet again.  
  
The daytime live broadcasts are a little different than the mandatory viewing hours -- less intentional drama-building, more second-by-second updates. Cato and Clove have finally figured out that Katniss killed Marvel, as they've followed Rue's trail and discovered small animal bones, and don't believe that Rue had any hunting skill, which leaves Katniss to be her ally, since they know Thresh is alone and Finch doesn't hunt. They guess that she'll be looking for "Loverboy," but fortunately assume that he's too weak to stay in the woods and start looking for him on the flatlands near the Cornucopia. Why they'd think _anyone_ would be that stupid is left to guessing.  
  
Back in the studio, I discover that Claudius Templesmith does actually sleep, as a daytime replacement is covering for him. The substitute is Leontius Bidwell, and he obviously has instructions to do his best Claudius impersonation, because the only way to tell the difference is that Bidwell's voice occasionally cracks.  
  
"Katniss Everdeen is playing it very safe," he says breathlessly as Katniss eats a large breakfast in the tree. "She has re-organized her packs, and given a very thorough look around the forest floor. While certainly some audience members hoped to see a dramatic race through the night, it looks like she is practicing the mundane good sense that is more likely to save Peeta Mellark. I think we can be certain that she is not as cool about it as she looks." He cuts to a re-run of her calling his name, which, I must admit, does not look entirely disinterested. "All sources," he continues, "agree that the two became quite close during training. Is it love?" Another cut, this time to Katniss's face when Peeta confesses his feelings on Caesar's show. Bidwell comes back. "This shot has been analyzed by experts in the field of forensic psychology."  
  
Said experts chime in, analyzing the tilt of Katniss's head, the widening of her eyes, the position of her hands. They consider her clearly delighted beyond reason at this new knowledge. More than a minute is devoted to how wide open her mouth is, and whether or not her posture indicates attraction. There is much giggling in the gym, as, in fact, Katniss pretty much just looks astonished.

There's a sideline in the coverage about Haymitch having an affair with Johanna Mason, whose shoulder he was seen touching last night. She's shown fake-gagging at the idea, and they do a voice-only interview with him in which he deadpans that he's saving himself for Effie Trinket. This gets a few good-natured hoots and hollers from the older boys.  
  
They go back to the arena, where Katniss finally climbs down carefully from her tree, holding her bow at the ready. She looks around warily, but there's nothing to see. Thresh and Finch are off on their own errands, and Cato and Clove are in entirely the wrong place.  
  
She stands quietly, her head cocked.  
  
Bidwell's voiceover is nearly a whisper. "We have seen more than once in these games that Katniss Everdeen is a skilled tracker, but will she know where to begin to look? She must realize he was stung by the tracker jackers she used to attack the alliance he briefly joined, and can't have gotten far. But what is she doing now?"  
  
What she's doing is readily apparent to anyone with a brain -- she's lighting a greenwood fire in a place she has no intention of being. I doubt I'd survive twenty minutes in the arena, but even I can figure out her strategy. Bidwell pretends ignorance until she is actually headed off in the other direction.  
  
"Yes!" he says. "She's realized that he'll need water." He brings up a map of the arena, showing Katniss and Peeta's locations. She is headed for the creek, but is a good ways upstream from his hiding place. I sit on my hands to keep from biting my nails.  
  
I feel a hand on my shoulder and look back to see Leevy Cooley, one of the Seam girls who I was dancing in a circle with last night. She smiles and says, "She'll get there."  
  
I nod. "I hope it's in time."  
  
"It will be," Madge says, not looking back.  
  
Leevy leans forward and whispers in Madge's ear, "Nice poem yesterday."  
  
Madge smiles faintly.  
  
On screen, Katniss has rounded the bend in the creek and is coming near to the place where Peeta is hidden. She looks around, and I am afraid for a moment that she is going to turn around and give up -- it's not a very safe looking place, with all of the banks and rocks for enemies to climb up on and get the upper hand. But suddenly she stops, spotting something. The camera swings over to the boulders, where Peeta slipped as he came and left a smear of blood. He tried to wipe it away, but he was almost unconscious, and thankfully didn't do a very good job. The map, now projected in the corner, shows that she's almost on top of him.  
  
She stops at another spot that I'm guessing is blood, though the camera can't get an angle on it, then says, quietly, "Peeta! Peeta!"  
  
A mockingjay picks it up, and others copy the cadence. The mockingjays get their own cheer in the gym, though it upsets Katniss in the arena.  
  
She looks around desperately. The camera cuts to Peeta, who is asleep in the mud, but the mockingjays' call seems to have reached him. His eyelids start to flutter.  
  
Katniss looks around desperately, but doesn't see him through his camouflage. She shakes her head, and climbs back down to the stream, obviously meaning to go on further.  
  
"Stop, Katniss!" several people yell, along with, "He's there!"  
  
Then Peeta's voice, weak and breathy: "You here to finish me off, sweetheart?"  
  
She turns. Whatever she might or might not say next is drowned out by a huge cheer that goes through the gym. It gets louder and louder until Peeta opens his eyes in the mud, and then it reaches a volume that might well cause structural damage to the school. By the time this fades, Katniss must have said something about his job at the bakery, because he answers, "Yes, frosting. The final defense of the dying."  
  
"You're not going to die," she says firmly, and there is another explosion of cheering. I don't realize that I'm part of it until I notice that my throat hurts and my hands sting from clapping. I am also crying with relief.  
  
The cheering dies down as Katniss realizes the severity of Peeta's wound and tries to move him toward the stream. It's nearly silent when we all realize that he can't move on his own at all, and is in agony every time she moves him. We've seen nothing but the hiding. I don't think I'm the only one who didn't realize how much pain he's been in. Barsha grabs my hand. Madge looks horrified. Behind me, Leevy makes some kind of comforting noise.  
  
In the silence, the class bell is very loud. The sound on the screen goes off, and Mr. Durigan comes out. "Well, we've seen that she's found him and is helping him, so we do need to go back to our classes."  
  
Somehow or other, we do. There is gossip between classes, as televisions are on in the gym, in the cafeteria, and in the hall -- Katniss has managed to get Peeta out of his mud bank, but is now engaged in washing him, which is not all that interesting, though I hear a twelve year old girl in the hall giggle and say, "I wonder if he's naked under the mud!"  
  
"I hope not," Prim Everdeen says. "For his sake." She doesn't elaborate.  
  
Coverage switches to the others for a while -- the Capitol doesn't find Peeta's very long bath all that exciting, either, I guess -- then finally gives up and goes to non-Games programming, so the televisions in the school go off. We finish our play in literature, and Izzarel gives an unconvincing soliloquy before making a half-hearted jump into the pretend Thames. I pass a quiz about the preservative chemicals used on coal before shipment (in District Twelve, chemistry is a bit limited). I have lunch with Madge again, and this time Leevy and two of her friends, Billa and Tansy, join us. Tansy says that if Katniss can be on Peeta's team, then Seam and town can be on the same team here at home.  
  
After lunch, I have history, which is at least not about coal this year, though at the moment, I couldn't care less about the failings of the society that preceded Panem, or the fact that it once banned coal. (Okay, history is a bit limited as well.) Since reporters are still milling around in the gym, we do exercise hour outside. Leevy's friend Billa gets a pick-up ball game going, and Leevy chooses me for her team. I do not prove to be a good choice, but she's nice about it.  
  
The last period of the day is free study, which seems to last forever because I'm not interested in anything. Ed comes by to meet me to walk home. He has exercise hour last, and smells like it. I don't mind.  
  
He's quiet as we walk, and finally stops at the base of a trail that leads up to a little park (really just a hill that no one has bothered to do anything with). He tugs my hand and we walk up. At the top, kids over the years have made a seating area of logs, and we sit down on one of them. He gives me a proper kiss, but it's a little distracted, like everything else today. He leans forward, elbows on his knees, and says, "I meant it this morning, Delilah. We shouldn't be doing this."  
  
"Okay," I say.  
  
"I do like you. I can't believe Peeta held out on me about how great you are."  
  
"Peeta thinks I'm a random sister who forgets to come home at night."  
  
"Don't say that around Mom. She'll put your mother under surveillance." He puts his hands in his hair and pulls on it, straightening a few curls. "He can't even move, Delly."  
  
"Katniss will save him."  
  
"You have a lot of faith in her."  
  
"Everyone does."  
  
I gather from his expression that he is less sure, but he just says, "The point is, I can't do this while he's in trouble. He's a pain in my ass. I can't stand him most of the time. But I... you know."  
  
"Love him?"  
  
"Yeah. That." He shakes his head helplessly. "He's my little brother. Hawthorne was right. I should have volunteered. And you should be giving out kisses to someone who would volunteer."  
  
"There's only one person who's ever done that in District Twelve, and I think Peeta'd be a little annoyed if I started kissing her."  
  
"Don't joke."  
  
"I'm not joking. You're an average brother. So what? Most people aren't Katniss Everdeen. And Ed? Peeta isn't Prim. Prim wouldn't have stood a chance out there. Peeta's a strong guy, and he has a real shot at coming home. If he hadn't been fighting with Cato to save Katniss, he'd have as much of a shot as any of the others right now, even if they hadn't teamed up."  
  
"My mom didn't think so. She told him Katniss would win."  
  
My jaw drops, quite of its own accord. "What?"  
  
"I don't think she meant it the way it sounded. He'd just said that we were supposed to think that, if she came home, he won. So she said she thought that Katniss would come home and be a victor." He picks at a tuft of weeds by his shoe. "She's said a lot of lousy things to him -- she's not making any great mother lists, either -- but I think that was the only one that really hurt him. And she didn't mean it the way it came out. I'm pretty sure, anyway. But a mother should probably argue with her son when he says something like that, don't you think, instead of just encouraging him to go ahead and die?"  
  
I don't answer. He's wrong about the other things not hurting Peeta. I have sat by Peeta while he tries not to cry over being called useless and foolish, an idiot like his father, and any number of other endearments Mrs. Mellark has come up with over the years. It's not always, or even very often, but she has a pronounced talent for hurting him with the sharp side of her tongue. The occasional finger bruises on his arm are nothing, and even the black eye she gave him when he was eleven and burned some bread hardly fazed him, but the words hurt him. He learned early on that a well-aimed word could inflict a wound as deep as the one Cato's sword left. I think Ed's right that she never means to do it, and I suspect she is genuinely sorry most of the time, especially now. This doesn't stop her from doing it.  
  
Another boy might have become cruel himself after years of this, but Peeta just takes it, absorbs it somehow, and doesn't spit it back up at anyone else. I sometimes imagine it staying inside him like some rancid swamp in his brain -- or an infected wound -- but if it's there, he never shows it.  
  
"She bought him paints," Ed says abruptly.  
  
"Who...?"  
  
"Mom," he clarifies. "Right after he fought with Cato, Mom bought him this box of paints, so he can do something with his talent other than make disgusting Hunger Games cakes for Cray. She put it on his desk while he was burying himself in that mud. No one else is allowed to touch it."  
  
This surprises me -- Mrs. Mellark is pretty stingy, and no one thought Peeta would make it home then. We mostly didn't think he'd make it through the first night. "That's... nice of her."  
  
"I want to do something, so he knows I know I should have spoken up. What should I do?"  
  
I sigh. "I don't know what to tell you. It looks like he's going to come back from hell. Maybe he'll just really need to know that you still see him as Peeta. Maybe he'll just want his big brother around." I am not hopeful about this. Peeta tolerates Ed and sometimes even jokes around with him, but for the most part, they ignore each other.  
  
The anthem saves me from any awkward elaboration on the subject. Mandatory viewing hours have started. I stand up and offer my hand to Ed. He takes it, and we walk down to the square in a friendly way. By the time we get there, there's not much room to stand. Cressida and her cameramen have grabbed the Everdeens and the Mellarks, and Mr. Mellark signals to Ed to come over. I wave him off. When the anthem ends, they are live, and I can see double while Cressida asks their opinions on the new alliance. Mr. Mellark says that he and the Everdeens were old friends. Mrs. Mellark adds a story I didn't know, and which may be fabricated, which involves Mrs. Everdeen having helped with Peeta's birth. "So Katniss was there from the start, in our living room while Peeta was born in back," she finishes up. "I swear, they were crying at each other."  
  
If the story is fabricated, Mrs. Everdeen doesn't seem inclined to call her out on it, which makes me think it might have at least a grain of truth somewhere.  
  
The coverage switches to District Two, where Cato's and Clove's families are talking about all the sports they play, and how Clove wanted to be on the boys' teams for everything because she was so strong. Cato, in this telling, was the only boy who regularly allowed it. In District Five, Finch's brother and sister brag about her grades, and say that she could share her textbooks because she memorized them. Thresh's sister leads us through the silo where he works, showing some kind of harvesting innovation he's made that cuts down on air and helps keep the grain fresher.  
  
A still picture of Thresh appears, and jets to the left side of the screen. Finch's picture goes to the right. Cato and Clove go to the top, and Katniss and Peeta appear on the bottom. The pictures swell to fill the screen, then an effect blows them apart, revealing Claudius Templesmith, smiling. "Welcome back!" he says. "Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark had an exciting morning today..." He recaps Katniss's search, and shows footage of her finding him in the mud. I think they have enhanced Peeta's eyes, because I don't recall them being quite so bright this morning. He shows a few shots of Katniss washing mud off of him, and cutting through his undershirt.  
  
"It's taking some time to relieve Peeta of his camouflage," Claudius says cheerfully. "In the meantime, let's check on our other tributes."  
  
Thresh is hunting, though it's not clear if he's hunting for food or victims. Either way, he beans a rabbit with a rock, which is no small feat. He hangs the rabbit from his belt and keeps moving. Finch is attempting to build a shelter out of greenwood. Her design is good, but she can't seem to make it work. Cato and Clove have found a new stream on the far side of the Cornucopia field, and are cooking fish.  
  
"I don't think they came this way," Clove says.  
  
Cato gives an indifferent shrug. "Yeah, but Thresh is down here somewhere. I think we can take him if we're together."  
  
"He's not the one who got an eleven," Clove says bitterly. "I want to kill Katniss Everdeen. That'll do for Loverboy, too, since you apparently missed."  
  
Booing in the square drowns out a few more lines, and a few shoes are thrown at the screen. By the time it's over, they've finally returned to Katniss and Peeta. I'd think it was old footage, but the forest sunlight is the same as it was for Finch. It's afternoon for them, and she's still washing him. She's managed to get him propped against a rock and get his hair clean, and is struggling with his pants, averting her eyes. This gets giggles in the square.  
  
Then the pants come free, and the giggling stops.  
  
Katniss's face registers very real horror. So does every face in District Twelve. Where Peeta's left thigh once was, there is angry, festering mountain of flesh, erupting pus and blood as the pressure from the fabric releases. In the midst of it, I can see a flash of white, which is his bone. Katniss tries to rearrange her face into something more clinical, but doesn't quite manage it.  
  
"Pretty awful, huh?" Peeta asks, which doesn't even begin to describe it.  
  
Katniss flatly lies and tells him it's only so-so. "You should see some of the people they bring my mother from the mines."  
  
This piques the interest of our crowd of reporters, and the next thing I know, Mrs. Everdeen is in the corner of the screen. We can see her looking up at herself and at Katniss and Peeta.  
  
"Have you taught Katniss any healing?" the reporters ask.  
  
Mrs. Everdeen, looking like she wants to step through her little inset box and go help, shakes her head, but says, "She knows more than she thinks she does. Look. She's going to clean it. That's always the first step. And she'll need to get some food in him somehow. And..." She looks less than hopeful. "She'll have to drain it. I hope she still has those leaves her friend gave her."  
  
Claudius comes on screen, now occupying the other corner, so we don't miss a moment of the cleansing of Peeta's legs. "We saw, earlier in the clean-up effort, that Katniss does, in fact, have the leaves her mother mentioned. She used them to clear up the remaining tracker jacker stings." He turns to watch. The removal of mud from Peeta's legs turns out not to be interesting, so they enlarge Mrs. Everdeen's picture and ask her about what she would use on a wound like this. I can tell it's the last thing she wants to do, but she knows as well as the rest of us do that the more screen time Katniss and Peeta get, the more likely a very generous sponsor is to send Peeta the medicine he needs. She goes over all the herbs she uses to treat fevers and infection, and brings Prim up to talk about bandaging. The Capitol must be eating this up -- folk wisdom from the hinterlands -- because they don't break away from it until Peeta's legs are clean and Katniss announces that they are going to "experiment a little" and promptly uses the leaves to cause a river of pus to flow out of Peeta's leg.  
  
Mrs. Everdeen, back in her smaller corner of the screen, confirms that this is exactly what she needed to do, though the cameras don't stay on it long. The Capitol is apparently not fond of pus. Judging by her face, neither is Katniss. Peeta asks her for a kiss -- joking, I think -- but as she's kneeling in a puddle of diseased fluids, I can't really blame her for not indulging him.  
  
"This is usually the part when Katniss decides she needs to go hunting," Prim says, sitting down beside me, her eyes twinkling. Ed is with her. She is wearing what it takes me a minute to recognize as one of Peeta's old winter jackets, the hood pulled up to hide her hair and most of her face. I'm guessing it's not as inconspicuous as she thinks it is in the middle of summer, but she's being left largely unmolested. "Funny how we're always in most need of game when there's pus."  
  
"It looks like she's sticking around this time," Ed says.  
  
"She's tougher than she thinks she is."  
  
"That cut looks worse than I thought," I admit.  
  
"It's about what Mom and I expected," Prim says. "We watched the thing with the doctor -- they replayed it in late night -- and figured on what was in the mud. It's probably been keeping his fever down a little. Katniss will need to find something new to do that. Probably slowing down the bleeding a little bit, too. But it's mud. Things live in it."  
  
We watch as Katniss bandages the wound, and everyone laughs when she makes Peeta hold a backpack over himself while she washes his undershorts. Prim snorts. Mrs. Everdeen has finally been released by the reporters, and she and the Mellarks come over. Gale Hawthorne wanders over from a crowd of Seam kids. He is laughing, too. "She can gut a wild dog, but _that_ throws her?"  
  
The Capitol editors are having fun with it as well, focusing on the backpack as much as they can. Peeta dozes off, leaving nothing more interesting from them than, quite literally, watching his clothes dry on the rocks.  
  
The coverage goes back to the Capitol, where today's topic seems to be historical lovers where one of them is deathly ill. Capitol citizens name their favorites. Peeta and Katniss are high on the list, duly compared to the Last Queen of Denmark, who stayed by her dying consort while Copenhagen drowned, then threw herself on a ceremonial sword. In Capitol terms, this is romantic. In District Twelve, Gale perhaps summarizes it best when he says, "Wasn't it her job to be getting her people to dry land instead?"  
  
Even Mr. Mellark, a confirmed romantic most times, doesn't argue with this. "Would everyone like to join us for supper?" he asks.  
  
Mrs. Everdeen looks surprised, and glances at Mrs. Mellark, who is smiling tightly, but not revoking the invitation.  
  
We all go to the bakery. Gale looks deeply uncomfortable, but has been hunting, and contributes a rabbit, saying he already sent the rest home with his brothers, and was just going to sell the rabbit. Mr. Mellark promptly (well, as soon as Mrs. Mellark isn't looking) buys it at a fair price. We all keep an eye on the television, but it's mainly showing Cato trying to hunt a deer with a spear and sword. Gale finds the whole thing hilarious, especially the commentator talking like it's remotely likely to be successful.  
  
"Why isn't it?" I ask.  
  
"Spear-hunting's better for open plains," he says. "All he's going to do in the woods is probably stick a tree. The girl with the throwing knives would do better, and even that's a long shot." He gives a snort of laughter. "And what does he think he's going to do with the sword on a deer? Duel its antlers?"  
  
As we sit down, they finally come back to Katniss and Peeta. She's got him awake, bandaged, and dressed, and they're trying to walk downstream. She is looking around desperately and finally spies something.  
  
"What's she got?" Ed asks.  
  
"Cave," Gale grunts. "See the mouth?" He points to a shadowy area.  
  
No one speaks as Mr. Mellark serves up a rabbit stew with flatbread on the side. Katniss gets them settled and tries to hide the opening -- Gale is disgusted with her handiwork and says he's going to have to go over blinds with her when she gets back. She tears it down and goes back in. This must have been a place the Gamemakers expected people to find, because the cameras are obviously already in place from several angles. Peeta calls her, and she comes to him and brushes his hair out of his eyes. It's a surprisingly tender gesture from her, and Gale stops eating. Mrs. Everdeen and Prim both look confused.  
  
"I feel like we should give them some privacy," Ed says.  
  
"They're in the middle of a show," Gale says, and digs deliberately into his stew. "It's all for an audience. Privacy would defeat the whole purpose."  
  
"Look, if I don't make it back -- " Peeta says, but Katniss stops him.  
  
"Don't talk like that. I didn't drain all that pus for nothing."  
  
This gets a smile from Mrs. Everdeen.  
  
"I know, but just in case I don't -- "  
  
Katniss looks at him crossly. "No, Peeta, I don't even want to discuss it."  
  
I wish she'd let him say whatever he means to say. Just in case.  
  
He tries one more time. "But I -- "  
  
And then she kisses him.  
  
I hear something clatter and look over my shoulder. Gale has stood up, knocking his stew and utensils to the floor. He glares at the screen.  
  
Then storms out of the house.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ed and Gale come to blows in Twelve while the Gamemakers plot to create conflict in the arena.

**Part Two: Weathering the Storm**

  
**Chapter Four**  
Mrs. Everdeen stands up, alarmed, and says, "Gale's not... he's just..."  
  
"I know," Mr. Mellark says quietly, getting down to start cleaning up the stew. "I've been there, remember?" In the silence, we hear that rain is now pouring down outside. Downstairs, the back door slams open, and something falls from the force of it.  
  
Abruptly Ed shoves his chair back and grabs a knife from the table. He thunders down the stairs. I follow. I think the others do as well, but I don't care.  
  
When I get outside, Ed has covered the distance between himself and Gale. He grabs Gale by the back of the shirt and throws him against the side of the shed by the pigsty. A crazy thought about what the reporters are seeing crosses my mind, but they're most likely huddling out the storm out in the square, on the far side of the bakery. They aren't seeing anything.  
  
Ed slams Gale against the wall again and pins him, and Prim shouts, "Stop it!"  
  
The two boys glare at each other, then Ed says, "If you screw this up and my brother dies, I'll kill you."  
  
Gale pushes him away, then reaches down to his boot and pulls a hunting knife. "Yeah? You think so?"  
  
"Gale!"  
  
"Stay back." He and Ed circle each other, their feet splashing in the muddy ground.  
  
An icy mask falls over Ed's face, and the rain seems very loud. "I have a pretty good working relationship with Cray. Maybe I should tell him to keep a better eye on that fence from the end of school until midnight."  
  
For a long moment, I think that they are really going to do it, that there's going to be a fight as bad as anything we saw in the arena. Then Gale gives Ed a disdainful look and puts his knife back in his boot. "I don't care about your threats," he says. "And I don't care about your brother. But Katniss has decided to protect him for some reason. If I screw it up, she won't forgive me, and I do care about that. So I'll be a good cousin as long as the leeches are out in the square. But you stay clear of me. All of you." He goes around the shed and disappears into the rain.  
  
Mr. Mellark comes around me and touches Ed's shoulder. "Give me the knife, Ed."  
  
After more hesitation that should be necessary, he does. "Dad, I -- "  
  
"Go inside. Cool down."  
  
Ed goes inside, leaving the Mellarks, the Everdeens, and me standing out in the rain. Prim and I are shivering. Mrs. Everdeen doesn't even seem to notice that she's soaked. She sighs and says, "I should go after Gale. He's a good boy. I'll take care of cleaning your rug."  
  
"I'll get it," Prim offers. "You go."  
  
Mrs. Everdeen steels herself and follows Gale.  
  
"You don't need to clean anything, Primrose," Mr. Mellark says.  
  
"If it's stained, that boy is going to pay for it," Mrs. Mellark says.  
  
Mr. Mellark closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "That's hardly the most salient point this week, Mirrem."  
  
I take Prim's hand and say, "Come on, we'll take care of it together." I get her inside, expecting the Mellark screaming match to begin any second. Maybe they'll keep it down for the reporters. I chance a glance over my shoulders. They aren't screaming, but Mr. Mellark has sat down in the mud by the pigsty, and Mrs. Mellark is sitting on the stoop, her back turned to him.  
  
We pass Ed, who is in the bakery refilling sugar and flour bins, and go back up to the dining room. Prim and I make quick work of the spilled stew, and she scrubs the carpet with a brush and some water. I sop it up. There doesn't seem to be a stain. On screen, Katniss is trying to coax a bowl of soup down Peeta's throat. Someone must have sent it while we were watching the knife fight outside.  
  
Prim sits back on her heels, looking thoughtful. "I don't know what's happening," she says. "Gale's not like this. He looks after us. He brings game. He's Katniss's friend."  
  
"It seems like he might be more than her friend," I say as Katniss manages to bribe Peeta into taking a bite of soup by giving a him a lingering kiss.  
  
Prim shakes her head. "Katniss doesn't want boys like that. I mean, she doesn't want _anyone_ like that. She says she's never going to get married, so there's no point starting out with it."  
  
"Sometimes people change." As Katniss is currently stroking Peeta's cheek and speaking to him in a very tender-sounding voice, this seems reasonable to me.  
  
But Prim shakes her head. "That's Mom's voice for Dad," she says. "I recognize it. Katniss is putting it on like a costume."  
  
I look again. Between enraptured gazes at Peeta, Katniss is, in fact, making sure that the cameras have a good angle. Peeta, on the other hand, looks completely besotted, and I don't think it's just because of his fever.  
  
I am ready to be angry, but then it hits me: She doesn't need to be there at all. She was doing all right before. Whatever she's doing, she's doing for Peeta, not for herself. She could have left him in the mud. The kisses and voice might be faked, or not, but that's real, and it's more important. Though I sort of wonder if either Gale or Peeta would agree with me on that.  
  
Ed comes in a minute later, covered with indifferent blotches of flour and sugar. He looks at what we've been doing, confused, then says, "Prim, do you want me to walk you home? It's getting late for you to be out alone."  
  
She smiles sadly. "I don't think it's a good idea for you to be down at the Seam right now. No one there will bother me."  
  
"I'm sorry," he says.  
  
"No. We're in the same place. You don't have to apologize to me." She stands up and heads for the door. "Um, Ed?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"If you feel like apologizing to Gale in school or something? I maybe wouldn't do it. Not for a while."  
  
"Got it."  
  
They give each other a strange little smile, then Prim leaves.  
  
"Can I walk you home?" he asks me. "I have to get out of here." He nods toward the back, where his parents are still sitting in the rain.  
  
"They aren't yelling," I offer.  
  
"No. There's that." He holds out his hand, and I take it. As we walk down the stairs, he says, "Why were you and Primrose washing the carpet?"  
  
"Same reason you're walking me home," I say. We go outside. If anything, it's raining harder. Ed grabs an umbrella from a stand on the front porch, and we walk under it together to my place. "Unfortunately, my house is pretty much already here. You want to watch the rest with us?"  
  
"I don't want to watch the rest at all. Tell me when she saves him, all right? Because it doesn't look like he's getting saved."  
  
"It's still mandatory," I remind him.  
  
"I'll watch out here, then."  
  
"It's raining."  
  
"So I'll get a cold. So what?"  
  
"Let me get a raincoat," I say. "I'll stay out with you."  
  
He doesn't argue. I grab my raincoat and Dad's, and go back outside. Ed and I are the only people really watching outside, though there are some shelters around. The shelters don't do much about the really driving rain. We sit under one of them, arms companionably around each other.  
  
Katniss manages to get the whole pot of soup down Peeta's throat, then holds him until he falls asleep. The coverage goes back to the Capitol, where middle-aged women are crying into the fur of their designer cats. One tells the story of nursing her husband through a terrible headache.  
  
They check in briefly on Katniss, who is eating from her small stash of food, then move on to the other tributes and their fans. District Two has hardcore perennial fans, and they have an ongoing party at what looks like a very fancy club. One says, "The one thing to remember about Romeo and Juliet is that they die."  
  
I do not know who they're talking about, but the sentiment is clear enough.  
  
Thresh's fans have created a dance based on his way of walking -- it's a kind of heavy, deliberate stomp, which they've worked into a complex choreography set to a flashy electronic song.  
  
Finch's fans are a lower key group, and have been meticulously reading all of her favorite books, which they hold up and talk about. Her self-identified favorite, which they've been talking about as a group, is _Space Dance_ , which is about astronauts who left before the disasters coming home to discover the changes in the world. One is able to adjust, another one goes mad, a third becomes a traitor to Panem, and a fourth deliberately poisons himself. There is much discussion about what the types mean, which is obviously starting to bore the programmers, because they keep interrupting.  
  
"I read that," Ed says. "It's in the school library. It's pretty good. Have you read it?"  
  
I shake my head. "I'll check it out tomorrow."  
  
"So will everyone else, probably." He squints through the rain. "Someone's coming."  
  
There is, indeed, a colorful shape materializing from across the square. A few seconds later, it resolves itself into Cressida, and she runs under our shelter, shaking the water off her clothes. She blinks and recognizes us. "Ah," she says. "I wondered who was dedicated enough to be out here in the storm."  
  
"Sorry. Just us," I say. Only a few seconds of my interview were used, and I was unidentifiable. I haven't been asked again. She hasn't said it, but I'm guessing it's because chubby girls with plain faces aren't a great favorite in the Capitol. Otherwise, she _would_ have said something. "No one to film?"  
  
"What was happening at the bakery?" she asks. "I saw everyone go in together."  
  
"We ate, and everyone went home," I say. It's true, as far as it goes.  
  
Cressida looks like she's perfectly aware that I'm not being forthcoming, but doesn't push. She doesn't have her cameramen with her anyway. Instead, she sits down on Ed's other side and says, "I'm glad your brother will be all right."  
  
"He's not out of the woods," Ed says. "I don't suppose you could remind people that he needs medicine."  
  
She smiles faintly. "Keep watching," she says. "We've been told to be ready for a big development.  It might be about him.  They're very popular in the broadcast." She watches for a few minutes, her nose wrinkling, almost certainly unconsciously. Finally, she says, "I noticed that your train tracks keep going to the north. What happens if you follow them?"  
  
"Radiation poisoning," I say. "That goes toward District Thirteen. My dad heard once that the tracks end up being melted over a trestle, so you can't get very far. But we're not allowed to go, so we wouldn't know firsthand." (This is for safety. Dad did not hear about the trestle. He and Mr. Mellark and Mrs. Everdeen dared each other to follow the tracks once when they were children, and saw it for themselves before the Peacekeepers caught them and hauled them back inside the fence.)  
  
"Interesting," Cressida says.  
  
"Have you ever been there?" Ed asks. "I always see people reporting from Thirteen."  
  
"I've never been there."

  
We watch together through the end of mandatory viewing. Not much happens. Cato and Clove have an uneventful dinner. Finch shivers and starves. Thresh sleeps. Katniss tries to cool Peeta off with a soaked bandage, but seems afraid to do anything else. She sits beside him, her bow drawn and her night-vision goggles on, and guards him from the night. The anthem plays. There are no deaths, so they re-play the discovery of Peeta, Finch finding a berry bush that is unfortunately guarded by a mutt bird of some kind, Katniss cleaning Peeta, Cato and Clove hunting, Peeta with the backpack on his lap, Thresh building a tight shelter, and Katniss and Peeta's first kiss. After it, they move to a show about a dancing contest in a club in the Capitol.  
  
The rain has stopped finally, and Cressida says goodnight. Ed looks back at the bakery and rolls his eyes. "Well, no screaming match, anyway," he says, pointing at the upper front window. Through it, we can see the Mellarks embracing until Mrs. Mellark turns off the light. "I think I'll give them a little space for a while."  
  
"I thought they were angry."  
  
"Welcome to my life." He sighs, then says, "You should go home."  
  
"Yeah. And I have to work in the store tomorrow after school, so..."  
  
"I should help Dad, too."  
  
"Do me a favor, and stay away from Gale."  
  
"And knives?"  
  
"And knives."  
  
He nods. "I just felt like he was going to blow the whole thing. I'm scared to death, Delly."  
  
"I know." I go to kiss his cheek, and it ends up on his lips. "Sorry," I say.  
  
He runs his thumb over my cheek and says, "I'll live." He gives me another kiss, then sends me home. I watch him through my bedroom window for a while. He sits through the whole dancing competition and the beginning of the late night coverage. I can't sleep, so I take a tiny drop of sleep syrup, hoping it won't knock me out too badly to get up in the morning.  
  
My dreams take me back to the mine where Peeta is lost, and Katniss needs me to find him for her. She seems to be trapped behind a glass wall, though I can hear her perfectly well. She is talking about how I'll need to drain the pus, then get him to eat. I tell her she needs to do that, but she points at the wall, which I guess is answer enough. I go deep into the mine, and am still looking for him when I wake up.  
  
I lie awake in my bed for a long time, thinking about my dream and still swimming in a daze from the sleep syrup. I shouldn't still be dreaming about Peeta being lost. He's found. He's found and he's going to be all right.  
  
I feel suddenly bad, like the sky has opened up, but instead of pouring rain, it's pouring down every awful thing I've ever felt. I think of Peeta, out in the square, drawing on the cobblestones, the way the animals he made always seemed to come to life. I think of him taking tesserae to help some people who needed it, and talking others of us into doing it as well (though it was Madge's idea, of course -- only Madge would have thought of it). I think of him reading parts in plays for literature class, making them live the way he makes his drawings live. That Peeta, my friend Peeta, has never seemed so very far away.   
  
And I wonder if, no matter what happens in the arena, he will ever really be able to come back.   
  
I dig through my dresser and find a picture of him, taken when we were six. He has a box of crayons, and has one stuck behind each ear, one _in_ each ear, one in each hand, and one in his mouth. He is surrounded by the packing paper he's been coloring on. I don't remember where he got the crayons, and certainly any drawings he made with them are long gone, but there's still this -- a smiling Peeta with the thing he loves best in the world. I put it in my purse.  
  
I go down to breakfast and hug my little brother, then my parents. They don't ask what's wrong, which is one of the nice things about them. They just pet me a little and send me off to school, which is what I need.  
  
When I get to school, I tape the photo to Peeta's side of the board (though actually, the board is no longer very strictly separated). I feel better with it being there.  
  
The administrative office has put up a small blackboard, where they're keeping us up on any news, since the televisions aren't on and we're supposed to be paying attention to classes. They change the hour every hour so we know they haven't forgotten, but the words are the same all day: "Katniss is sleeping. Peeta is standing guard. No change in his condition."  
  
Just before math, I see Ed drawing on the big board, but there's no time to see it. I stop on my way to lunch to look. He's drawn a young Peeta in the bakery laughing with Mr. Mellark. To my surprise, he is just finishing a drawing of Katniss on her side of the board, riding on Mr. Everdeen's shoulders as they walk past the bakery. They way they're set up, it looks like Peeta is watching her.  
  
"That's nice," I say.  
  
"Wish I was as good as Peeta at this," he says. "Best I can do is cartoons." He points at the bakery one. "Jonadab and I used to tease Peeta something awful every time she went by outside, 'cause he'd just moon around the window until she was out of sight. Dad always told us to let up on him. Guess Dad was right."  
  
"Did you draw that?"  
  
We turn to see Prim, looking at the picture of Katniss.  
  
Ed nods. She throws her arms around him. He pats her shoulders awkwardly. "I hope it's okay..."  
  
"No! No, it's wonderful. Thank you. Daddy would have liked it, too." She pulls back, then goes on to her next class.  
  
"I really have the guilts, Delly," he says.  
  
I nod.  
  
We go on to our classes, too.  
  
I mind the shop after school while my parents mend more heels. Business is actually pretty brisk after yesterday's storm, which ruined a lot of shoes. ("Ruined" is matter of perception. Most of them will clean up perfectly well and go to the community home.) When mandatory viewing starts, I turn on the small counter television, where they show the day's highlights, including Peeta coaxing Katniss to sleep, which is actually sort of sweet. He stays beside her, stroking her head as she drifts off, and looks like he wouldn't mind keeping a hundred fruitless watches if he could keep doing just that. He reaches a few times for the water, but doesn't seem able to get it.   
  
The others are also in holding patterns, so the first hour of mandatory viewing is recaps and interviews on the streets. The remaining mentors, including Haymitch, are in meetings with the Gamemakers, so they interview the stylists and escorts. Mentors whose tributes are already gone come in for commentary. Johanna Mason, who lost her tribute on the first day, says that if she knows the Gamemakers (which, she assures us, she does), then they are planning to do something to "shake things up." It sounds like there was more to the sentence, but they cut her off and go to Gloss from District One, who says exactly the same thing, but sounds like he's actually finished when he says it.  
  
The coverage abruptly cuts back to Claudius, who says, "Aha! It looks like someone is waking up... and a lot later than she planned on!"  
  
"Oh, I just _love_ them!" a customer exclaims, watching Katniss and Peeta while she tries on a pair of sturdy boots that are more suitable to a District Twelve spring than the clear plastic shoes (with tiny electric fish in the high heels) that shorted out in the rain yesterday. "Do you know them?"  
  
"They're in my classes at school," I say, then try, "He could use some medicine."  
  
"Oh, that’s been taken off the sponsor list," the woman says. "We couldn't send it now even if we had the money."  
  
"Why would they do that?"  
  
"Maybe they plan to just give it to him," she says chirpily, then pays for her new boots and goes outside to show off her quaint genuine District Twelve footwear (which was made in District Eight).  
  
Of course, things are never just given in the Games, and she knows it. Combining this with the mentors' meeting with the Gamemakers and the late stage of the Games, I have a sinking feeling about what exactly they plan to do with Peeta's medicine.  
  
"Excuse me, miss? I need a smaller size in this patent leather..."  
  
I try to serve customers, but when Katniss finishes treating Peeta's more minor wounds (all of which are healing nicely), she unwraps the bandage on his leg, and I drop a stack of boxes, sending shoes spilling all over the shop. Dad comes up, looking like he means to yell, but then he sees what I see -- the red lines creeping up Peeta's leg from his wound. Neither of us needs Peeta's identification of blood poisoning. We've all seen it.  
  
"Miss? Excuse me, miss?" a voice prods. "I need those red ones, in an eight. I've been waiting for nearly five minutes!"  
  
"Will you _shut up_?" someone else says. I look away from the screen long enough to register that Cressida and one of her cameramen -- the quiet one -- are in the store. She has gone over to the other customer and is standing over her in a threatening way. "These people know those children!"  
  
I can't bear to look away anymore, but I hear Cressida bullying the woman out of the store and handing Dad money for whatever she meant to buy. A moment later, she kneels down beside me and starts helping me clean up. "We're not all like that," she says. "I'm so sorry about your friend."  
  
"He needs medicine," I manage to say, but I can't get anything else out.  
  
"I know. And they've got it, and it's good medicine. A dose will do it. I had blood poisoning last year. Fell off a guard post in Eleven while I was shooting a piece and didn't get it treated in time. But one shot took care of it. Let's see if we can't get it for him." She signals to her cameraman.  
  
"Thank you, but it doesn't matter. They took it off the list."  
  
She pales. "Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry."  
  
I pick up a few more shoes while Katniss fusses with soup for supper. Cressida directs her cameraman to help sort out the others. Katniss has a rather good idea to avoid lighting a fire by using hot rocks to heat the water. Unfortunately, it won't matter much how well she can cook in the wild. If what I'm thinking is right, the time for just going through the motions is coming to an end.  
  
While the soup heats, Peeta asks her for, of all things, a story. She asks if he's heard how she got Prim's goat, and when he says he didn't, she starts telling a lie about selling a silver locket. The rest seems true enough, though. I wonder what Prim makes of it.  
  
"Brilliant," Cressida says. "I couldn't have planned that better. He'll get whatever help he can, I think."  
  
"He's trying to make them love Katniss."  
  
"And they do. And she loves him, so therefore, they'll love him." She wrinkles her nose. "I know a thing or two about making a storyline. Though he's better at without training than I am after twenty years of it."  
  
I'm dully surprised that she realizes how well Peeta is playing a line that might well be created, but she seems to take it as a matter of course.   
  
While Katniss is speaking, the audio remains on her (we hear about the goat's injury), but the video switches to outside, where Finch has appeared from the woods. She goes to Katniss's pot of soup, dips in a little metal cup, and steals some. She drinks it, then pours in the same amount of water from the stream, then runs off into the shadows. We go back to Katniss, who is finishing up her story, talking about how much money Prim can make on goat cheese. Peeta chides her for pretending that this is what makes it a happy memory. Then she puts her wrist against his forehead and says, unconvincingly, that his fever is going down. He doesn't even pretend to believe her. I am struck again by the difference between the moments when she's kissing him and being careful about camera angles and by the moments when they're just there together, talking. It's moments like this that make me feel like I'm eavesdropping on something intimate.  
  
"Is that story true?" Cressida asks.  
  
"I guess so. Prim has a goat, and the goat has a scar on its shoulder. It -- "  
  
But I am interrupted by trumpets, and they are followed by Claudius Templesmith.  
  
"A feast," Cressida whispers. "At dawn. Of course. That's what they wanted us to be prepared for."  
  
"That's what I was afraid of," I say. "They pulled it off the list so Katniss would have to go to a feast."  
  
There's nothing to say to this. Outside, I can hear Seam kids screaming at the big screen. Many are cheering that she'll have a chance, but there's a goodish number telling her to stay, to win... and implying that she should let him rot.  
  
Peeta is doing more than implying. He's flatly telling her not to go. And when she tries to say that of course she'd never do such a foolish thing, he says, "You're such a bad liar, Katniss. I don't know how you've survived this long." He threatens to follow her and impede her, to get himself killed deliberately if she risks her life to save him.  
  
"What am I supposed to do?" she says, and again, there is no chance that the anguish in her voice is just an act. "Just sit here and watch you die?"  
  
It's obviously exactly what he wants her to do, though he promises her he won't die, and will do as she says. But I can tell by her face that she's trying to think of a way around it. Anything to keep him from sabotaging her. I don't know if I can sleep tonight, waiting for dawn and...  
  
I frown and call, "Daddy!"  
  
He comes back up. "What?"  
  
"I need my allowance. And my bonus from the heels. Now."  
  
He starts to argue, but realizes what I mean to do. He hands me what I asked for. It won't be enough to buy anything outright, but I can put it _toward_ something, and then it will be on the boards for other people to contribute to, at least if Haymitch picks it up and decides to put the money toward it. I run for the sponsor booth. There's never a line, even this year, and I duck inside and feed my coins into the slot while I pull up Haymitch's remote sponsor board. I'm too young to be a proper sponsor -- you have to be eighteen -- and I don't have enough money for it, but I'm allowed to put in what I do have. The Games play in a small screen to the side. Katniss is getting more soup into Peeta.  
  
The board finally loads. I don't need to feed anyone the idea. It's already at the top of the list, with a note that it's urgently needed.  
  
Sleep syrup.  
  
I direct all of my money to go to it, though at this point in the Games, all of my money probably buys less of it than I took last night to get a few hours of sleep, and she'll need considerably more.  
  
Enough to knock him out all night, if she can get him to take it. The donations are pouring in, and I resolve to never make fun of a middle-aged woman with a designer cat again. A chart appears in the corner of the screen, with a red bar leading to the goal. A video of Effie Trinket appears above it.  
  
"Our star-crossed lovers are in trouble!" she says brightly. "We can help... but only if we help right now! Sponsors, we know you love Katniss and Peeta. So do we here in the District Twelve camp! Why, right here is Cinna, Katniss's stylist -- "  
  
She brings in Cinna, who is a great favorite after the tribute parade, and he also solicits donations.  
  
The red line hits the goal, and a picture of the sleep syrup comes up. Video shows a hovercraft above the arena releasing a parachute.  
  
On screen, Katniss is outside cleaning up and looking desperate when the parachute reaches her. At first, she doesn't even seem to recognize it.  
  
Then light dawns. She mixes it with berries, takes it back to the cave, and tells Peeta that she's just found "sugar berries," which only grow in the woods. She extols their virtues as she nearly forces them down his throat. At the last minute, he recognizes the taste, but it's too late.  
  
He falls down, his eyes rolling back. Katniss wipes his chin and says, "Who can't lie, Peeta?"  
  
Outside the sponsor booth, the square erupts in cheers. I go outside and see my friends and neighbors together, but it's not the way it was when Claudius made his first announcement.  
  
Because, while Katniss has solved the problem of getting out of the cave without Peeta being a danger to himself, now, she'll be facing one of the most dangerous parts of the game... and she'll be alone for it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the feast, District Twelve waits for news of both of their tributes.

**Chapter Five**  
Mayor Undersee uses the local cut-in option, which is almost never used in District Twelve, to announce that there will be no school tomorrow. Sunrise in the arena is around eight-thirty here, and he encourages us all to come to the square to support each other while Katniss tries to survive the feast. The shops -- including the bakery -- have to stay open under Panem law, but Ed's friends from the wrestling team immediately volunteer to staff the counter until the feast is over and Peeta is safe.  
  
"If I may speak personally," the Mayor says, "I have had the privilege of knowing both Katniss and Peeta somewhat through my daughter, Madge, who is in their year at school. They are fine young people, and a credit to District Twelve, and my heart and hopes go with them tomorrow." I expect him to ruin this by hoping that the odds be ever in their favor, but he doesn't. Instead he says, "Let's all be with them, by being with each other at this time. I know that we are often divided, but here and now, we are all District Twelve together."  
  
The regular programming comes back. Katniss is settling in beside Peeta. We know without the commentators reminding us that she had a long sleep this afternoon, and will undoubtedly try to stay up through the night to make sure she doesn't miss the dawn.  
  
District Twelve stays up with her. We didn't sleep all morning and into the afternoon, so we spell each other. I sleep on my father's lap for a little while, then go over to a group of Sixteens to see if anyone there needs to rest. Leevy nods, and I promise to wake her in an hour. She curls up on the grass and I sit beside her, staring up at Katniss. She seems to be trying to take some warmth from Peeta's body. I'm sure with his fever that there's plenty to take, but he's so deeply unconscious that it looks like she's cuddling up to a corpse. She seems uncomfortable, and I can see her breath coming in little white puffs.  
  
The coverage doesn't stay solely on her, of course. In fact, at around three in the morning -- about the time I wake Leevy -- they cut to a romance in which a pretty young starlet plays the victor in the First Games, who fell in love with her stylist and had to go through quite a lot of trials for permission to live with him in the Capitol. Tansy and Billa sleep through this, but Leevy and I watch it without really seeing it. After it, they go to early morning news, with Games stories intermixed with heartwarming tales about lost kittens. Around six, the Everdeens show up, looking pale and terrified. Prim sits on the ground and grabs my hand tightly. Gale is with them, and he cuddles Prim from the other side. The bitter boy from yesterday is gone, or is at least subsumed by Prim's need for comfort, and probably his own need for it as well. A group of young Seam kids who I take to be his brothers and sister come along, and the mother puts an arm around Mrs. Everdeen.  
  
The tributes are shown now in the corners of the screen, getting ready for their confrontations. Katniss bundles up, putting on Peeta's jacket as well as her own, and putting a pair of socks on her hands. She bends down beside Peeta and gives him a kiss, though I doubt he notices it. Then she takes a deep breath and heads out.  
  
She will be surprised -- Finch has spent the night in the Cornucopia itself. I doubt she'll attack Katniss, but she'll certainly get away first. Clove is on the far side of the clearing, while Cato is headed down to the ravine to try and intercept Thresh when he comes. Thresh, intelligently, has spent the night making a wide circle around the clearing, and is coming from an entirely different direction. He's further away than the girls are.  
  
"District Two and District Eleven have both encountered several muttations, as well as dueling one another," Claudius says, "and they have reached a stalemate. They each have body armor waiting for them. Will both get to it? Clove and Cato have decided to divide and conquer here."  
  
The shot goes to Finch, waiting warily inside the Cornucopia. "Our clever girl has had bad luck with food and shelter. Her bag contains a thermal blanket, and two days' worth of food." Katniss fills the screen, crouching at the edge of the woods with her bow at the ready. "And of course, Katniss Everdeen is here for Peeta Mellark's medication. We are providing her with a strong antibiotic, used successfully by mountain climbers and adventurers who are prone to injury and infection. Our doctors, monitoring Peeta, have determined the right dose. But will she be able to overcome the other two girls and Thresh to get it to him?"  
  
"Does Katniss need medicine?" a little girl asks.  
  
"No, Posy," Mrs. Hawthorne says. "Katniss is helping the boy."  
  
"Oh. He's a nice boy. I like that she's helping him." She sits down on my other side and tugs on one of my curls. "How do you make your hair be springs?"  
  
"It does it by itself," I say.  
  
"I sure wish mine did," she says fervently.  
  
Ed starts to come over, then stops when he realizes who I'm sitting with. I feel like I should extricate myself and go to him, but Prim is holding my hand so tightly it hurts. She glances back, then looks up at Gale and says, "Please Gale, I want them."  
  
He closes his eyes, then looks at Ed. "All right," he says. "Stay then."  
  
Ed nods, and signals to Mr. and Mrs. Mellark. Jonadab and Sarey have joined them. By now, the little corner where the Sixteens spent the night is quite full, and we are all pressed together. Ed sits behind me, putting his arm around my shoulders and resting his cheek against mine. I take his hand with my free hand, which is a little difficult, as Posy Hawthorne is leaning on that arm. Gale and Ed do not acknowledge one another any further than Gale's implicit promise not to start anything, but there's no sign of the boys who were waving knives at each other only a few hours ago.  
  
Mrs. Everdeen has sat down on the single bench in the area. Mrs. Hawthorne sits beside her and holds her hand, then reaches for Mrs. Mellark's hand. Mrs. Mellark looks shocked, and I half expect her to turn up her nose, but instead, she takes Mrs. Hawthorne's hand and sits down on her other side. Mr. Mellark stands behind the bench, his hands on Mrs. Mellark's shoulder and Mrs. Everdeen's. They are all watching the screen intently.  
  
The sun rises over the arena.  
  
The ground opens and a table rises up. Finch grabs her backpack and runs, practically before the table has stopped moving. She's back in the woods before Katniss or Clove has budged, and Thresh still hasn't reached the clearing.  
  
Katniss bites her lip, then bursts from the edge of the woods, running for her life toward the innocuous looking table, where a tiny orange backpack with a twelve on it sits waiting for her. Clove moves at the same time, raising her throwing arm.  
  
"KATNISS!" Prim screams, and her hand clamps down around my fingers so tightly that I have a feeling I'll be bruised later. "Katniss, please, Katniss..."  
  
Katniss deflects the first knife with her bow, and shoots toward Clove, but the other girl is wound up and ready for it. She turns enough that it only hits her in the arm... and unfortunately, not the arm she throws with.  
  
Still, it slows her down enough for Katniss to grab the tiny backpack and slide it up her arm. There are gasps in the crowd, but no applause. No one wants to risk the sound of it covering anything. Clove has recovered from her surprise at the arrow hit and pulled another knife. She throws it.  
  
Katniss is just turning when it comes, still bent down a little from grabbing the backpack -- if she'd been where Clove expected her to be, it would have caught her in the center of the back. Instead, it catches her in the forehead, and blood pours down over her face. She fires the arrow, but I doubt she can even see her target.  
  
Prim screams. Gale cuddles her more tightly, and I squeeze her hand as well as I can. Mrs. Everdeen shouts, "Prim! It's a scalp cut, it looks worse than it is! You know that!"  
  
Prim catches her breath and forces the screaming to stop. Until Clove knocks Katniss down and pins her to the ground.  
  
This time, Mrs. Everdeen doesn't try to calm Prim. She's breathing in heavy, panicked sobs. Mr. Mellark has buried his hands in his hair and fallen to his knees. Ed is making a strangled sound in my ear. Gale yells, "Katniss, no!" He reaches for his little sister and buries her face against his coat. He covers Prim's eyes.  
  
"Where's your boyfriend?" Clove asks conversationally. "Still hanging on?"  
  
Katniss lies, saying that he's covering her, but Clove calls her bluff. I can barely understand her. There is a horrible, terrified whistling in my brain, and I feel like I'm about to watch both of them die -- Katniss here, Peeta back in the cave. Through this, I manage to catch, like a fragment of a nightmare, Clove talking about Rue for some reason. Then she wipes the blood off Katniss's face and stares at it, holding her knife casually.  
  
"Throw her, Katniss!" one of Gale's brothers yells. "Throw her! Take the knife!"  
  
But Clove is bigger than Katniss, and healthier. There is no chance of it. We are going to watch her die, and Clove is going to make sure she dies badly.  
  
The coverage cuts away, causing a wail to come from Mrs. Everdeen. It shows Thresh, moving up quickly, his brows drawn together in rage.  
  
"Looks like District Two has forgotten something," Claudius tells us. "And I think she may have made a fatal mistake in her taunts."  
  
Thresh lifts Clove off of Katniss and holds her in the air, then flings her to the ground. Katniss just blinks up at him, in shock. Yesterday, this would have occasioned a cheer, but now District Twelve is silent, confused.  
  
"What'd you do to that little girl?" Thresh demands. "You kill her?"  
  
"No! No, it wasn't me!" Clove protests.  
  
"You said her name! I heard you!"  
  
Claudius's voice, hushed, assures us that Thresh had been protective of Rue during training, and they had known one another in District Eleven. Then the camera focuses on the rock in Thresh's hand.  
  
Clove screams for her district partner. He hears her, but he's nearly down at Thresh's camp. He turns and runs for the Cornucopia. He won't get there in time. Thresh slams the rock down on Clove's skull.  
  
Then he turns on Katniss.  
  
Prim has forced Gale's hand off from over her eyes. She has not stopped shaking, but now she's whispering, "Please, oh, please..."  
  
Thresh says, "What'd she mean? About Rue being your ally?"  
  
Katniss tells him the story of her alliance with Rue, and what happened when Rue died, how she killed Marvel, and how she sang. There is something else she says she did, but the audio is briefly distorted. Finally, she just says, "Do it fast, okay, Thresh?"  
  
Thresh stares at her, then lowers the rock. There is another collective gasp in the square. "Just this one time, I let you go," Thresh says. "For the little girl."  
  
Mrs. Everdeen falls to her knees, sobbing in gratitude. Prim is weeping into Gale's jacket. Ed kisses my cheek and I can feel the tears running from his eyes as well. I think we are all deeply indebted to District Eleven, and I can't even imagine how we will repay it.  
  
Katniss scrambles backward, gains her feet, and runs into forest only a few steps ahead of Cato's arrival. Thresh grabs both remaining backpacks and runs for his camp.  
  
The coverage stays on Cato and Clove. She doesn't regain consciousness. A doctor reports on the likely damage to her brain while Cato tries to whisper her back to life.  
  
The cannon fires.  
  
Cato doesn't hesitate. He sets her down gently, then runs after Thresh. Thresh is prepared -- he's taken a route that he's rigged traps on. Cato avoids getting caught in them, but they slow him down long enough for Thresh to jump down into the ravine and light a brush fire.  
  
Cato is mad enough that he actually tries to charge the fire, but he doesn't get far. Both boys fall to the ground and rest.  
  
The coverage returns to Katniss, who is walking down the middle of the stream, and Prim tenses again. The head wound is bleeding profusely. Mrs. Everdeen steps carefully into the crowd of us and kneels in front of Prim. "You've seen scalp wounds," she says. "She'll lose blood, and she'll need to keep warm, but it's not as bad as it looks. You know that. It's a clean cut. She just needs to put pressure on it."  
  
Prim blinks slowly, then nods. She pulls herself away from Gale and me and flings herself into her mother's arms. They go back to the bench and soothe each other.  
  
Katniss tries to apply pressure with the socks she'd had on her hands, but they soak through quickly. She barely manages to stumble back to the cave, but she gets there. She pulls a syringe out of the little backpack, jabs into Peeta's arm, and gets the medicine into him.  
  
Then she passes out on the floor of the cave, blood spreading out around her head in a sinister halo.  
  
"Wake up, Peeta," Ed breathes beside me. "Wake up. Help her."  
  
Gale glances over his shoulder, surprised, but doesn't say anything.  
  
But Peeta doesn't wake up. She gave him enough sleep syrup to knock him out for a day.  
  
The coverage returns to the studio, where Claudius has the doctor back. "What's the prognosis for our star-crossed lovers?" he asks cheerfully.  
  
"I loaded that syringe myself," the doctor says, "so I can tell you that Peeta's prognosis is very good. He should wake up hungry, with a vastly reduced fever and lower swelling."  
  
"What about Katniss's wound?"  
  
The doctor unknowingly echoes Mrs. Everdeen. "It looks worse than it is," he says. "Luckily, she's fallen on a slight incline, and her head is above her heart. That should slow the bleeding. The human body can lose more blood than people think it can, though I expect she'll wake up dizzy." The camera fixates lovingly on the spreading pool of blood, which is now touching Peeta.  
  
They must determine that this isn't a very interesting shot, because they cut now to us, here in the square. I feel a wave of gratitude to Cressida, who will most likely be in trouble for this. Judging from the shot that they put up, she is on the far side of the square, deliberately shooting in the other direction.  
  
"It's certainly an emotional morning for District Twelve," Claudius says. "Our on-site producer says that the Mellarks and Everdeens aren't available to comment." He looks annoyed at this, as if we have nothing better to do than tell the Capitol how we're feeling. "But we can see the dedication in District Twelve to bring their star-crossed lovers home."  
  
"What does 'star-crossed lovers' mean?" Posy asks. "They keep saying it."  
  
"It's people who love each other, but can't be together," I tell her.  
  
"Oh. Is that why they kiss each other all the time?"  
  
"Yeah," Gale says. "It'd be hard to convince people without that. Come on, Posy. Looks like Katniss is going to be okay. Let's see if the Everdeens need anything." He takes her hand and goes over to Prim and Mrs. Everdeen.  
  
I think he's wrong. The pool of blood spreading around Katniss's head is a lot more convincing than a hundred kisses would be.  
  
I spend the morning with the Mellarks, watching the coverage nervously. Not much is focused on Peeta and Katniss, as they are both unconscious. A few of their Capitol fans are interviewed, and the doctor occasionally checks in to report that her cut is clotting naturally or his temperature is going down, but the real interest is in Cato's hunt for Thresh. He's taken over Thresh's camp and is calling him out. Thresh is not stupid, and doesn't go in, but the brush fire he started to put Cato off is pushing him closer anyway. Finch eats too much of her food at once and it comes right back up, wasted. She cries in frustration, then goes to sleep, curled up and warm in her new thermal blanket. The commentators make a point of how close she is to the fire zone, but nothing comes of it.

 

During the afternoon, Mr. Mellark panics when he gets a call from Haymitch, but it turns out to just be an order for cinnamon rolls to be sent to Thresh's family in Eleven. He makes them carefully and lovingly, and includes a note about how brave and noble Thresh is. He even draws a picture of Thresh smiling impishly, as he was caught doing during training, and adds that. If they aren't artists, it might be the only picture they have that they can keep.  
  
For the most part, we aren't really paying a great deal of attention to the coverage today, just listening for scraps of information about Peeta and Katniss. We talk about what Jonadab and Sarey mean to name their baby, which is due in March, though I doubt anyone in District Twelve will be terribly shocked if it comes a month or two earlier than they're saying. Ed takes some teasing about using his brother's life-threatening situation to hit on me. I am mortified, but this passes for normal conversation between the elder Mellark boys, and at least seems to defeat Ed's guilt enough for him to formally ask me out. I say yes, then go home for lunch, where my brother makes gagging sounds at the news.  
  
It is almost normal. The only thing that would make it seem more normal would be Peeta making gagging sounds.  
  
By mid-afternoon, it has started to rain in the arena, and the creek that runs down the middle of the ravine where Thresh's camp is has started to rise. A reporter in District Four tries to interview Annie Cresta, who won when the arena flooded, but she screams and slams the door in his face. Instead they cut to Finnick Odair, who was her mentor, but cut away suddenly after they tell him that they tried to talk to her about it.  
  
No one is in the shop, so Dad gives me the rest of the afternoon. I wander to the square and find Madge Undersee. She is not in a talkative mood, but we sit together for a while and watch as Cato is pushed out of Thresh's camp by the raging waters of the creek. Thresh himself is upstream a bit, in an area where rock walls will eventually hem him in if the waters keep rising. It's been almost an hour when Madge says, "I wish I could send him a raft. He's earned a raft." I suggest that we see, just for curiosity's sake, what it would cost, but when we get to the sponsor booths, we are blocked from District Eleven's boards. There is now a rule that we may only support our own tributes.  
  
"It would have been too expensive anyway," I say as we leave the booth.  
  
"That's not the point."  
  
We go for a long, rambling walk before mandatory viewing hours, up the hill, down through the Seam, around the meadow. Mr. Mellark is at the Everdeens', and it looks like he's brought them bread. Cressida is interviewing them, though all either of them has to say is that they're worried, which can't qualify as news even in the Capitol.  
  
The anthem calls us back to the square, and Madge decides to watch at home. She turns for a second like she means to invite me, then just smiles and scurries inside instead.  
  
The Mellarks are still in the bakery, so I go home and watch in the living room with my family. They recap this morning's feast for people who didn't get up for it (or stay up for it), and do a memorial for Clove. After this morning, I find it difficult to feel sentimental for her. Her parents are calling for Thresh's blood, and Katniss's. Apparently, they missed the part where their daughter pinned Katniss to the ground and threatened to torture her to death. Her mentor, Enobaria, seems relatively untroubled by the whole thing, and just says that Clove was a good fighter, and did her best.  
  
The brush fire has started to get out of control as evening comes to the arena. It's not a fire started by the Gamemakers, so they can't just turn it off. Instead, they spread the rainstorm through the whole arena, and it is the rain that finally wakes Peeta up, coming through the cave entrance and onto his face.  
  
He sits up, confused, then sees Katniss and lets out a yell that would have brought every tribute in the arena if they weren't otherwise occupied. He sits up and puts his hand on her throat, feeling for a pulse.  
  
"Come on, come on, oh please..." He finds it and picks her up, holding her to his chest. "That's it, yes, that's it. Crazy girl. Don't you die on me..." He goes on in this vein as he gently washes her face with a torn off piece of his shirt. I see Prim Everdeen pop up in the corner of the screen, watching intently and saying that Peeta will need to be careful not to start the cut bleeding again, but that he does need to clean it before it gets infected. The doctor in the Capitol comes on and agrees with her. There is not much to focus on -- Cato, Thresh, and Finch are all just trying to find a dry place. They cut to them intermittently throughout the broadcast, but comparatively, Peeta's attentions to Katniss are fascinating.  
  
He isn't moving well. His infection might be healed, but his leg is obviously stiff. He lurches to the cave entrance to rinse and wring out his cloth, then lurches back to Katniss to continue cleaning her up. When he's got her face clean, he goes into the first aid kit she took from Marvel and finds a bandage, which he presses to the cut. A longer one goes around her head to hold pressure. When it's done, he takes her hand, and looks suddenly alarmed.  
  
"You're freezing," he says. "She's freezing, Haymitch!"  
  
This is not answered with any parachutes.  
  
He finds a square of plastic in Katniss's backpack and secures it on the rocks above her head, which keeps the rain off of her. Then he rubs her hands and breathes on them. He takes off her soaking shoes and socks and finds a relatively dry corner for them, then he rubs her feet. He starts to take off his own socks, but they are more or less destroyed after days buried in the mud. He throws them away in frustration and wraps her in her sleeping bag, then slips in beside her and holds her to him, stroking her hair carefully to avoid the bandage and kissing her head. "You'll be all right," he says. "You'll be all right. You have to be all right." He sets her down gently when the anthem plays, keeping her head elevated by putting the backpack under it, and looks up at the sky. Coverage where we are cuts back to a replay of Clove's death.  
  
The mandatory viewing closes with a shot of Peeta wrapping himself up beside Katniss, giving her his warmth.  
  
There is no movie tonight between Games cycles. Everyone is worn out.  
  
I go to bed, and am asleep before the anthem ends.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delly finds herself closer to Ed as the field in the arena gets smaller.

**Chapter Six**  
My dreams bring me back to the mine, where I am still calling for Peeta. I know now that he's in a chamber deep under the mountain, just as I know that, somewhere above me, Katniss is bound and can't help.   
  
It isn't a cave-in that's trapped Peeta. He has built a closed room. I know this because I find drawings of it made with the crayons from the picture I put of him in school. One shows him hidden away. Another shows a girl, who is Katniss at first glance, but when I look a second time, it is the girl from District Eight, the girl whose blood Peeta spilled to end the agony of her wounds. She is drawn in the childish scrawl he had when he owned the crayons, but I recognize her nonetheless, and I know that the reddish scribbles all around her are not an accidental background.   
  
I run down the passage where the drawings were, and I see the table from the feast, with torches to either side. There is a door behind it, and I know that Peeta is behind it, but no matter how hard I knock, he won't answer.  
  
"He's always been a pain in my ass," Ed says behind me, but when I turn, he isn't there, either.  
  
I sit down on the ground between the torches and wait to wake up.  
  
Morning comes in almost unnoticed. I'm certainly awake before my alarm tells me I need to be. It's a gray day, and the coming of the light only changes the character of the night a little bit.  
  
I get dressed and go next door. Ed is outside, slopping the pigs. He smiles at me and says, "I'll kiss you when I wash my hands."  
  
"Thanks." I sit down on the back steps. "Sorry I stayed away yesterday."  
  
"Does do something to the ego to ask a girl out, have her say yes, then have her disappear." He finishes emptying the slops. "But I'll survive. As long as it wasn't some kind of message?"  
  
I shrug. "Just a head-clearing."  
  
He comes past me and we go inside. He washes his hands, then, as promised, gives me a kiss. He gets his things, and we go to school together.   
  
"You seem a little distant," he says, and I laugh, because it sounds like he's trying to speak a foreign language. He scowls. "What?"  
  
"Just... you don't have to ask about it if I look weird."  
  
"I want to know. I don't know you very well, other than the fact that you are an extremely comforting human being. Isn't finding out what makes someone tick part of going out?"  
  
"I guess."  
  
"So, what's up?"  
  
I tell him about my dream, and that it's the third time my mind has taken me to the mine. He listens without talking, and we're almost at school by the time I finish. He stops at the last corner. People are walking in around us, but ostentatiously not paying attention. (Since the media descended, District Twelve has been very deliberate in its attempt to not gawk at the Mellarks and Everdeens.)  
  
"I don't know why I keep dreaming it," I say.  
  
Ed shakes his head. "I've been dreaming about the time he ran away."  
  
"When he was seven?"  
  
"Yeah. You remember that?"  
  
"Sure. He got lost up on the hill."  
  
"He did that because I dumped him in the flour bin. He tipped it over trying to get out, and Mom yelled at him. He could have told on me, but he didn't. He just ran away. I keep dreaming that he freezes to death up on the hill. Which is pretty stupid, since it was July."  
  
"Well, he doesn't really go into the mines much, either, so it's kind of stupid for me to be afraid he'll get trapped there."  
  
Ed thinks about it, then gives a helpless shrug. We start walking again, holding hands. "We're just worried, I think. But it's getting better. He's almost home." We reach the school and go inside. Half the wrestling team is by the tribute board, writing encouraging messages. We join them. I don't know them, but they know Ed and Peeta both, so I'm more or less accepted, though they seem nonplussed by me as Ed's girlfriend. I'm not as pretty as the others he's had. He keeps his arm around me the whole time. They're all waiting for news, but everyone is pretty happy that Peeta seems better.  
  
"Now he really needs to save his girl, though," Lonard Blaney says. "Since you've managed to win Delly away."  
  
I make a disgusted face, since I know that's exactly what Peeta would do at the suggestion. They laugh, and I'm fully accepted.  
  
Partway through literature (since we're so near the end of the school year, we are just reading the short poetry of the Great Gathering), Mr. Durigan makes an announcement on the intercom that Katniss has woken up and seems to be all right, and that Peeta is taking care of her now. Clay Geisler waggles his eyebrows suggestively and says, "I'll _bet_ he's taking care of her." He clarifies this subtle sentiment by jerking his hips around in the chair.  
  
"Classy, Geisler," Izzarel says. "Very classy."  
  
"Enough of that," Mrs. Hudock says. "And since you're feeling so passionate, Mr. Geisler, I think you should be the one to recite this lovely poem from Pippa Callahan."  
  
We all get a giggle from this, as the poem is a paean to Pippa Callahan's lover, fixating lovingly on each of his various body parts in a series of linked haikus. The poetic comparisons apparently refer to great artworks before the catastrophes, sinking into memory as each of his caresses have sunk into her mind. "Colossal David" gets the biggest laugh, especially when Mrs. Hudock brings up a picture of the sunken statue.  
  
The laugh fades away when we all glance at Peeta's chair, expecting him to make one of his usual string of comments, probably making fun of himself somehow, or maybe finding a way to let Clay off the hook without teasing him.  
  
Mrs. Hudock sighs and goes back to class, talking about the way the poets of the Gathering often eulogized their homelands through poems to lost lovers who were almost certainly allegories. I wonder, if I were forced out of District Twelve, how I would make it a lover. I don't think Twelve would be the romantic type, and I doubt it would ever send me roses. It probably wouldn't even make a show of putting its arm around me in front of the rest of the wrestling team. It might, however, run straight into a murderous trap and bleed from its head for a day to save my life.   
  
Mrs. Hudock notices that I'm distracted and asks why, and that's how all of us end up assigned to write poems about District Twelve as a lover, though we are forbidden to use imagery from the Games ("I don't want to read the same poem fifteen times," she says, then quietly corrects herself to "Fourteen.") Whether she's forgotten that we're not supposed to have homework or just knows that we need distraction, I'm not sure.  
  
"So you were thinking of Katniss as your lover?" Ed says later, while I'm working on my assignment on the kneading table while he frosts cookies. There's footage on television of Haymitch in a Capitol park, talking to a crowd of kids, but there's no sound. "Is there something you want to tell me, Delilah?"  
  
"What can I say? Peeta and I always did have a lot in common." I shrug. "It's just, if you could personify District Twelve as anything, it would pretty much be Katniss. Town and Seam, Hob and Square. And she doesn't waste a lot of time being sentimental. She just _does_ things. Isn't that pretty much District Twelve?"  
  
"That's very deep," Ed says. "But I think you should choose a virile baker." He poses absurdly. "What says District Twelve more than racks of bread that we can't afford to eat?"  
  
I consider this. "That's not bad." After doodling around with the image for a while, I say, "Is that what you're going to do? Be a baker like your dad?"  
  
"I don't know. I wasn't going to. Peeta was the one who wanted to bake. But he's not going to need to work when he comes home, so someone will have to take the place over."  
  
"What did you want to do?"  
  
"It's not like there are a lot of choices. I thought about working the mines, but when I went down to ask what I'd need in school for it, I got called... well, the nicest thing was 'poser.' So I figured I'd do something else."  
  
"Like what?"  
  
"I like building things, but who can afford to build anything? And there are already a bunch of empty houses for people to move into."  
  
"Maybe you could have a hardware store," I suggest. "Lots of people try to fix things themselves so it's cheaper, and we haven't had a hardware store since Mr. Fisher died."  
  
"It's a thought. What about you? Are you called to the shoe trade?"  
  
At that, I realize it's an absurd question. None of us can exactly rush off and do whatever we'd like to. Shopkeepers' kids inherit shops and work in other shops until the time of inheritance. Seam kids go to work in the mines or the mine offices. Now and then, someone can break out and be a teacher or work in the Community Home, but mostly, there's not a lot of wiggle room. I sigh dramatically and say, "Maybe I'll be the greatest poet in the history of District Twelve." As, to the best of my knowledge, I would be the _only_ poet in the history of District Twelve, I might actually accomplish this, no matter how bad I am.  
  
"Yeah," Ed says. " _Coal is black and blood is red, Twelve's a trap, and then you're dead._ "  
  
"It's a classic," I tell him. "People will study it for centuries."  
  
By the time mandatory viewing starts, I've at least managed to get a concept (Ed going down to the mine and being called a "poser" is the basic idea), though my hopes of becoming a poet are more or less shattered by my total inability to not feel ridiculously pretentious with every word I write. Ed and I watch in the bakery.  
  
They show Katniss waking up as Peeta strokes her cheek, but a voiceover covers most of what they're saying until Katniss abruptly squeezes her eyes shut against tears.  
  
"What is it?" Peeta asks. "Are you in a lot of pain?"  
  
She is obviously in a lot of pain, but I don't think Peeta believes any more than the rest of us that it's coming from the cut on her head. She just says in a choked, childlike voice, "I want to go home, Peeta."  
  
"You will, I promise."  
  
"I want to go home now," she elaborates.  
  
He looks at her not with the tenderness of a romance, but with real, honest compassion. I have seen this expression. It was the expression he wore when he first took tesserae grain to Abilene Arley, a sick old woman who lives -- lived -- in a shack near the mines. I went with him. We took the tesserae to help people, but I don't think we really knew until we went in how far beyond food the need went. I wanted to leave, but Peeta go this look on his face and sat down, and talked to the lonely woman for two hours. I think it did her a lot more good than the wretched grain ever would.  
  
To Katniss, he says, "Tell you what. You go back to sleep and dream of home. And you'll be there for real before you know it. Okay?" He smiles.  
  
Katniss returns his smile, and the look she gives him is so surprising coming from her that at first I don't recognize it. It is a kind of slow-blinking, affectionate gaze, not burning with passion, but warm with... _trust_. She trusts him. I suppose she must have trusted other people -- I don't know her very well -- but I've certainly never seen her look this way before. She goes to sleep with him on guard, and he caresses her head, keeping a lazy watch on the cave entrance.  
  
This little conversation has apparently set the fuse on an explosion of interest in the rustic life of District Twelve from the Capitol fans since it aired live this morning. Jewelers have been furiously making necklaces and bracelets from coal slag (most likely just setting it in place of more precious stones in pre-existing settings, then charging the same for it), and salons are featuring, for their more daring customers, a "natural" hairstyle like Katniss's. For a bit extra, you can have genuine coal dust applied artfully to your brow and cheekbones. A girl so decorated goes into poetic ecstasies about the simple, true life of District Twelve, where she understands that trees often grow without having been planted. She doesn't look like she entirely believes such a fanciful notion. Apparently, this was what Haymitch was doing earlier. A little Capitol boy who was in the audience says he was telling wonderful stories, and promised to get someone to sing songs for them.  
  
There is more re-cap coverage of Cato and Thresh's day. Ignoring the rain, they have been attacking each other across the raging creek all day, using rocks and anything else they feel they can spare before close combat. They show Thresh's escape from the narrow ravine, where he let go and let the water carry him where it would. It almost threw him directly into Cato, but at the last minute, a current took him to the other side.

 

At the edge of the drop, Finch is wandering, looking lost. Her blanket is wrapped around her, but is already in tatters from the rain. Her lips are bluish. The doctor reports that the condition of her mind may be somewhat precarious, given days without proper nourishment, and the likelihood that she's developing a respiratory infection.  
  
"Will she outlast Cato and Thresh?" Claudius asks.  
  
"It depends on too many factors. And right now, the two in the best position are Peeta Mellark and Katniss Everdeen."  
  
This, of course, is a segue back to a live shot of the cave, where Katniss has woken up and they are eating the last of their stored food and wondering whether or not Thresh found a "bread bush" down in the fields, since he seems better fed than he was at the beginning of the games. Katniss seems vaguely annoyed that Peeta didn't go down into the field and risk muttations and attacks just to find out, but doesn't say anything until Peeta wonders what they'd need to do for Haymitch to send them bread.  
  
Ed snorts and says, "Take a guess, Peeta."  
  
I look up from my notebook, where I've been noodling around with rhymes for _dim_. "What?"  
  
"What are the sponsors eating up, Delly? What do you think they want to see?"  
  
"Oh," I say. " _Oh._ "  
  
He shrugs. "Well, probably not quite _oh_ far, but they're not tuning in to see an argument about a bread bush."  
  
Which is just as well, as the argument has now shifted away from bread bushes to the more meaningful question of her forcibly drugging him. He is not happy with it. As far as I'm concerned, he can be unhappy with it until the day he dies at a ripe old age surrounded by his great-grandchildren, and I won't care a bit. Katniss agrees with me on this -- she tells him it was the right thing to do -- and I assume that the entirety of District Twelve agrees with both of us.  
  
"Don't die for me," Peeta says, squeezing her hand. "You won't be doing me any favors, all right?"  
  
Katniss starts a speech that sounds rehearsed, like she had it written in her head for just such an occasion, but she starts to stumble, and a panicked look comes into her eyes. She is hyperventilating.  
  
"What the hell -- ?" Ed says.  
  
She tries to cut the whole thing off by bringing up obviously fabricated orders from Haymitch, but she is shaking, and he pulls her to him and kisses her.  
  
I've seen a good number of kisses. People in school more or less treat you like an unbearable prude if you look askance when they fondle each other in the halls. But I've never seen one like this. This isn't a public display of affection. This is a no-holds-barred kiss, and Katniss seems to be almost melting into it. I avert my eyes, because I feel like this is none of my business.  
  
Then I hear him say that her wound is bleeding again.  
  
"Well, we're not going to need the analysts for that one!" Claudius says, obviously amused as they cut back to the studio. "I think everyone can see for themselves!" He shows the kiss in slow motion, Katniss's eyes slipping shut, Peeta's hand buried under her hair. He gets another angle on it, then a third (this one an odd one from the mouth of the cave, where a camera seems to be planted under a sheltering rock). They go back a live shot of him carefully settling her down and pressing against the bandage.  
  
The coverage lingers, obviously hoping for more substantial affection, but the best they get is him decreeing that her socks are dry enough to put on. They switch to Finch, who has been trying to catch fish, but is too weak to stand in the current. She is swept to the bank. A mutt fish of some kind takes a nip at her, but she manages to roll away. Ed speculates that they are deliberately starving her to death because she has refused to play the more violent games. I don't argue. Cato and Thresh have both given up their long distance sniping, and are looking for dry places to stay, as both of their previous camps are now under water.  
  
This must all be very dull for the Capitol, because coverage returns to the studio, where the sweep of the Games is analyzed, along with all of the actions of the remaining tributes. Possibly because he now has a chance of surviving, they focus on Peeta's killing of the girl from District Eight. I hope that her parents aren't watching, or if they are, that they can see that Peeta didn't want to kill her. Everyone in District Twelve can see it, but we know him. We know he wouldn't have killed her if she hadn't been in unbearable pain. But if anyone has said that to reporters, it hasn't been aired, and Claudius just marvels at his precise knife-work.  
  
The lights flicker and the television goes out. I look at Ed, who is standing beside the bakery's fuse box. "What a shame," he says dryly. "Power went out."  
  
Mr. Mellark comes down to fix it, though I notice he's in no hurry. It's half an hour before we get the power back, and now they're in District Two, talking with a teacher of Cato's. We sit out the rest of it (Peeta and Katniss have curled up in a sleeping bag), then Ed walks me home. We stop just short of my front steps. He puts his hand on my face and says, "I can't promise any slow motion re-caps and national analysis."  
  
"There'd better not be," I say, and he kisses me. His hand rests on the curve of my waist, his thumb skimming the bottom of my breast. I don't melt, but it is nice. I go inside. I have a feeling I won't dream about the mine tonight, and I don't.  
  
The next day continues rainy in the arena, and I am cold watching it in the Mellarks' living room. I'm sitting on the floor, leaning on Ed's leg as he strokes my hair. Jonadab and Sarey are cuddling on the couch, wrapped in a knit blanket. Mrs. Mellark is in a wing chair. Mr. Mellark is watching down in the bakery today.  
  
The Gamemakers are throwing various mutts at Thresh and Cato, trying to break the balance of power, which has been made worse by Cato's winning of his backpack, which contains body armor. Thresh cracked it a little bit in a theatrical display, but it's not seriously damaged. Now, they can bash at each other indefinitely without either of them ending the fight. Finch steals meat that Cato has killed, but it's raw and there's something wrong with it, because she sicks it up again. Her mentor is invited into Claudius's studio, where he talks about her family and her sickly father, and says that she just needs something clean and bland to eat. At this point, almost anything will be astronomically expensive.  
  
They show Thresh briefly, seeking shelter in a nook in the rock, but he sees Finch sleeping -- or unconscious -- there. He holds up the machete he is now wielding, but lowers it and moves along. I don't know if it's compassion or honor or just a desire to not waste energy and risk her screams alerting Cato when she is obviously dying already. The commentary is quick to stress the last.  
  
Peeta and Katniss have slept the day away, and she apparently decides they need to do something more interesting, so she asks him to tell her when he started liking her. He starts to tell her about our first day of school, which I remember a bit of. I was late, but I saw him talking with his dad, who pointed out a little girl in braids. I didn't hear what they said. Now, I find out that Mr. Mellark was sharing emotional details of his past life with Mrs. Everdeen.  
  
Mrs. Mellark stands up and walks down the hall. I hear the bedroom door slam.  
  
"Maybe we should go home and get the guest room ready for him," Sarey says tentatively.  
  
"No," Jonadab says. "Dad's on his own with this one."  
  
We watch quietly. While this little storytelling session is causing tension here, it brings a lot of joy to Katniss and Peeta, as Haymitch sends them a full picnic basket. I hope they'll leave a little of it somewhere that Finch can reach it, then I remember that I can't hope for both Finch and my friend. So I hope instead that Peeta never finds out that she is nearby starving.  
  
He and Katniss get a little giddy over the food, though they are careful to eat in small portions. To distract herself, as far as I can tell, Katniss asks Peeta if he ever noticed any other girls. I expect him to lie -- to say that of course there was never anyone. This could be disastrous, since I've already given Cressida Jemima Kingery, and that would reveal the lie. But Peeta's better than that and just says that he noticed all the girls, but only Katniss ever stuck with him. This is mostly true. I talked him through any number of crushes, but he always returned to her between them. This is actually an interesting conversation, at least of the sort that interests the Capitol, but very suddenly, the coverage cuts away.  
  
The ravine down near the Cornucopia has filled, and become a raging river for a short way. It's overflowing its banks.  
  
And Thresh and Cato are battling through the storm, sword against machete.  
  
"Only seconds ago," Claudius tells us breathlessly, "Cato caught up with the Thresh when both of them were forced away from the low ground. Finch has also been forced from her shelter." The camera briefly shows her, too soaked and weak to walk, crawling toward the Cornucopia. Maybe she means to shelter in it again. If so, she may not make it. Her sense of direction seems skewed, and she is crawling in what looks like clumsy loops.  
  
So far, neither boy has noticed her. The clang of metal on metal rings out above the rain.  
  
There is no need for narration. Claudius remains silent. The boys fight furiously at the edge of what was once the drop, and is now the river. Thresh has the upper hand. Cato's strong, but Thresh is stronger. The object is obvious -- one of them will have to push the other into the water. Otherwise, the body armor will keep them at a stalemate all night. Neither of them looks in the mood for a stalemate.  
  
"This is it," Cato says. "You die right now."  
  
Thresh doesn't bother with threats. He pushes Cato back.  
  
There is a groan. Thresh looks back involuntarily, and Cato strikes him with the flat of his sword, sending him skidding in the wet grass. Thresh keeps his head about him and blocks the blow that follows, sweeping the handle of the machete at Cato's knees. Cato crumbles to the ground, but the grass is too slippery for Thresh to get up and finish him.  
  
Cato scrambles backward.  
  
And runs directly into Finch, who is at the apex of one of her crazy loops.  
  
Cato raises his sword.  
  
From nowhere, Thresh is on him, knocking him into the mud. "Let her go," he says. "She's as good as dead. You don't need to waste your time on her."  
  
Finch sits back on her heels and looks at him, her eyes wide in her too-thin face.  
  
"You in this to win, or save skinny little girls?" Cato asks, pulling away. He manages to gain his feet, and raises his sword sideways, like he's going to swing it in a circle and cut Finch.  
  
"Yeah, big man," Thresh says, moving in to block the blow. "Killing a dying girl."  
  
Only that's not Cato's plan. He waits for Thresh to get close enough to block, then viciously swings the sword handle at him, catching him in the face, leaving a dent like the one Thresh himself left on Clove's head. With a grimace full of hate he pushes Thresh into the water.  
  
We hear the cannon. I don't know if they can hear it in the arena.  
  
What Cato definitely doesn't hear is Finch. Shaking, she has risen to her feet. She launches herself at him like a missile, hitting him squarely in the small of his back, knocking him off balance.  
  
He goes over the edge and into the water.  
  
Finch's eyes widen even more. She retches, but there is nothing for her to throw up. She falls to the ground and starts screaming, the rain pouring into her mouth.  
  
They go back to the studio. "I think our clever girl has gotten farthest anyone has without making a kill," Claudius says thoughtfully. I don't think this is true. I'm pretty sure that I've seen other tributes hide out and survive. I think Annie Cresta actually won with only one kill. But the coverage always tries to make the victor look somewhat blooded. "She seems troubled by it." He presses against his earpiece. "No, wait. We are still receiving vital signs from Cato's tracker. Yes, yes. Here he is." The cameras on the river return. Cato is climbing up the far bank, looking stunned.  
  
Finch is still crawling away, crawling for the woods, moaning to herself, batting at her ears. I want them to take the cameras off of her and let her deal with this. Of course, they don't. For once, they've found something more interesting than Katniss and Peeta and their romantic life. Now, they have a teenage girl going insane on national television. They must be thinking of Annie, too. There was a mad girl rage after her games, with movies and books about teenage girls driven to the brink of insanity. (Unlike Annie, they all found their way back to being cheerful, chipper Capitol girls again.) I hide my face, wanting it to be over.  
  
After a while, they switch to Cato tending his wounds, then back to Katniss and Peeta, who have obviously learned about Thresh's death. Katniss looks broken by it. Peeta makes her go to sleep and takes a watch. He holds her knife at the ready. The anthem plays, and they re-play Thresh's death lovingly. It's the first they've had in a few days, and they make the most of it. Now, they manage to go to District Eleven, where they interview several Peacekeepers who say Thresh was an honorable young citizen of Panem.  
  
Mandatory viewing ends.  
  
I go home.  
  
The next day is Saturday, so there is no school. Leontius Bidwell is reporting again. I watch morning coverage from my room as Katniss and Peeta first manage a kiss, then have some fun teasing Effie Trinket (I try to imagine her being someone a person might tease, and fail). Then they go hunting. Peeta has never been terribly graceful and knows nothing about surviving in the woods. In that manner, he's never grown very far from the little boy who got lost in the town park. Katniss sends him gathering while she hunts. She is obviously extremely irritated with his inability to walk as quietly as she does. I think we're seeing a little bit of cabin fever, as much as anything else. She teaches him to use the mockingjays to keep in contact.  
  
Cato is being attacked by either a mutt or a very large bird of prey. Finch has found Peeta and Katniss's cave, and is carefully following them down the river. The camera focuses on her closely. A lip-reader says that she is repeating the word "Killer" over and over.  
  
Peeta is gathering leaves and berries carefully, not eating them, but not looking very concerned about it. I assume he means to ask Katniss about them. He leaves the food in a pile on the sheet of plastic that was sheltering Katniss in the cave and goes to get more.  
  
"Let's hope he doesn't decide to snack before meeting up with her," Bidwell says. "The berries he picked, he undoubtedly thinks are the huckleberries that Katniss has brought him in the past, but these are nightlock berries -- almost instantly deadly if eaten."  
  
I sit up straight. Peeta is gathering death innocently at the side of the stream.  
  
They cut back to the sheet of plastic, and I wonder why until I see the leaves rustle. Finch grabs a piece of cheese that Peeta and Katniss had saved for lunch. She gobbles it down, wild-eyed, then pauses, looking like she expects it to come back up. Then she starts muttering, "Killer," again, and absently grabs a handful of the nightlock berries.  
  
Katniss whistles to the mockingjays, but Peeta doesn't react. The commentators suggest that he can't hear it. In a panic, Katniss runs back to the meeting place, her eyes wildly searching the forest. In the corner of the screen, they play footage of her doing the same thing when she lost track of Rue. He does finally come, his hands full of berries, and she starts screaming at him.  
  
We can hear her yelling at Peeta in the background, but the audio isn't focused on them. It's Bidwell, saying, "Finch has passed these up before, but with her infection and starvation, she may have failed to recognize them, especially as she saw Peeta gathering them."  
  
Finch sniffs the berries. She tries to eat one, but misses her mouth and smashes it into red pulp on her upper lip. She looks at the juice on her fingers.  
  
Then she forces the full handful of berries into her mouth, chews, and falls to the ground.  
  
The cannon booms.  
  
The kill goes into Peeta's column, his second. He looks stunned by it. But now, their only enemy left is Cato -- wounded and hunted on the far side of the arena. The Gamemakers will have to do something to force them together.  
  
Katniss arms herself with the remaining berries, putting them into a leather sack. It's the coldest thing I've seen her do. I don't think she'll go through with trying to poison Cato, though she obviously thinks she will. She and Peeta head back down the river to the cave after a brief lunch, and Cato tests out his ankle, which he turned in the fall into the river. It seems fine.  
  
The commentators return.  
  
I slip back into bed, thinking about Finch, and the way she looked at the berry juice on her fingers, muttering "Killer" to no one at all. And I think of the stunned, disbelieving look on Peeta's face when Katniss told him what happened. I wonder if, when he comes home, he will be muttering and mad. I think of it, think of how much this will change him, and I start to cry.  
  
I am still crying when I fall asleep.  
  
I dream again of the mine, and the chamber beneath the mountain, and I know where Peeta is, but he's guarded now by the two girls -- Finch and the girl from District Eight. I plead with them to let me in before he disappears, but they refuse. Finch is carrying a spear wound round with berry vines, and the girl from District Eight has Cato's sword. They are crossed against me.  
  
"He's safe here," Finch says. "Don't you trust us, after all he did for us?" She laughs, berry juice running down her face and hands, and the strangled, mad sound of it follows me as I wildly run for the daylight.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final battle of the Games plays out, while District Twelve watches Claudius's final proclamation with horror.

** Part Three: Recovering **

 

 **Chapter Seven**  
I go outside for mandatory viewing. It's a very nice night out, objectively speaking, though everyone in the square looks tired. We may win. It's even likely. Or, as Effie Trinket might put it, the odds are in our favor.  
  
But this has gone on too long, and too much has happened. Usually at this point in the Games, we aren't paying attention to the stresses of the Games themselves.   
  
I look for the Mellarks, but they're surrounded by reporters, along with the Everdeens. Prim is on screen again, biting her lip during the recaps. The viewers must really love seeing her. Mr. and Mrs. Mellark are holding hands and smiling, but I haven't forgotten the sound of the door slamming last night. If Ed's anything like Peeta, though, I won't find out from him what's going on. When there is not actual screaming happening, the Mellarks tend to be a little insular.  
  
Other than Finch's death, nothing of importance happened this morning, and even Finch's death was not cinematically gripping, so most of the mandatory coverage is with the analysts and the reporters in the Districts. District Five is in mourning, its lights at half-lume. Finch's teachers are interviewed, and one of them is weeping outright. She shows a sheaf of papers with incomprehensible diagrams on them and says, "Look what we lost today! Look what Panem lost!" They say they are going to interview her friends, but none show up.  
  
Clove's family in District Two is interviewed, as Cato killed her killer. They are satisfied about Thresh, but still want Katniss's blood. Cato's family accuses the Games of showing favoritism to Katniss and Peeta, as though giving one contestant bread is somehow superior, in a violent competition, to giving another one body armor. In the Capitol Katniss and Peeta's fans express this, pointing out that any advantages they have now are results of their choices and actions earlier. Cato's fans point out that Katniss and Peeta are not being attacked by mutts.  
  
On cue, Claudius returns and says, "Ah, yes, mutts. Genetically engineered plants and animals -- commonly called muttations or mutts -- have been with us since the days before the Catastrophes, when they were bred for work or amusement. Among the early muttations were glow-in-the-dark rabbits..."  
  
He goes on in this vein, then finally breaks to a documentary about the history of genetic engineering. The early days were quite tragic, as agricultural territory wars broke out and peoples died out in a matter of generations when certain alterations meant to create better immunity proved to cause sterility. In the land that became Panem, these particular alterations had never been attempted. They were more interested in useful pest control animals and toy pets than in engineering better humans, a trait that has remained with the scientists of Panem, who of course are not in the least interested in changing the very nature of human beings. Instead, they have continued to make helpful waste-cleaners, assistant animals for the disabled (in the Capitol), and, of course, the war-mutts, like jabberjays and tracker-jackers, which proved instrumental in ending the Dark Days. They were designed not only to fill a functional duty, but to cause fear in the rebels. Because of this, they have traditionally been a part of the Hunger Games, with new muttations created nearly every year. "Unlike our jabberjays and tracker-jackers, though, these muttations are sterile, and _only_ introduced in the arena."  
  
The mutts have their own groups of fans, and the president of the Muttation Appreciation Society lovingly introduces all of the mutts which have appeared in the arena this year. They are still especially fond of "the classics," particularly the tracker-jackers Katniss dropped on the Careers early on, but an up and coming favorite is the guardian bird that kept Finch away from several edible shrubs she found. "This one has potential!" he enthuses. "I hope they keep developing it."  
  
"We'll see, we'll see," Claudius cuts in. "But I am told that there is one more muttation in the works... and we may get a reminder of why they are feared."  
  
I don't like the sound of this. The reporters are still surrounding the Mellarks and Everdeens, but they aren't live.  
  
I move toward a bigger group of people and spot Leevy, who waves to me. "Doesn't sound good, does it?" she asks. "Do you think it's the end of the Games?"  
  
I nod.  
  
"Katniss can handle mutts," Gale says. He's sitting in a shadow, and I didn't see him at first. "If she can shoot it, she can handle it."  
  
"What do you think he means about reminding people why mutts are scary?" I ask.  
  
He shrugs. "Could be anything, with the Capitol. Shouldn't you be over there?" He nods toward the cameras.  
  
"I'm not really loved by the camera," I say, sitting down beside him, so the bitterness in his voice won't carry. "Shouldn't you?"  
  
"They already got me. I'll probably be on later. Usual stuff about how tough my cousin is."  
  
"You're in love with her, aren't you?"  
  
"Yeah. Not that it matters." He waves his hand at the screen, where she and Peeta are keeping each other warm in their cave.  
  
"When they get back, I think they're both going to need all the love they can get," I say.   
  
He doesn't argue. For a few minutes, we watch the report on fever pitch betting in the Capitol. Katniss and Peeta as a team are leaders, but among the people who think there will be an individual winner, Katniss is the clear leader. Cato has his District Two fans, and Peeta has a handful of real fanatics. To my surprise, they are mostly boys our age. Actually, despite the stupid Capitol fashions they're wearing, they don't look very different from anyone I sit in class with. Maybe that's why they're rooting for Peeta.  
  
"Did you watch this morning?" Gale asks. "With the berries?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"He had no idea. He's never even been in the woods, has he?"  
  
"No."  
  
"She practically lives in the woods. She has to have been really tired to not recognize nightlock right away. What do they have in common?"  
  
"Saving each other's lives a lot," I say. "And the Games."  
  
"Right. That." He watches them for a little while. "She sure seems comfortable there."  
  
I don't say anything.  
  
Gale sighs. "I guess she'll still need a hunting partner."  
  
"Yeah," I say and put a hand on his shoulder. "That's not really something Peeta's good at."  
  
He pats my hand, then gets up and walks away slowly, looking old and beaten.  
  
"I'm impressed," Leevy says, sitting down in the spot Gale vacated. "I think that's the longest conversation I've seen Gale have with someone from town. What did you talk about?"  
  
"Hunting," I say.  
  
"I want to stay friends after the Games," she announces. "I'm so sick of the town and Seam thing, I may grab some nightlock myself if it starts up again."  
  
I smile. The only classes we have in common are math and science, and I have no idea what else she likes, so I say, "I'll be your lab partner next year."  
  
She makes a face. "Aaagh! Physics! I hope you're good at it, 'cause it just confuses me."  
  
"I guess we'll find out," I say. We chat away the rest of mandatory viewing, not saying anything important. She has a brother who's the same age as Sam, and I call Sam out to meet him -- they know each other in school, but like most of us, nowhere else. After about five minutes, Sam is off with Leevy's brother and his friends, playing a game of soldiers.  
  
Ed finally joins us toward the end of the broadcast and sits down behind me, resting his chin on my shoulder. His image is on screen, saying if Peeta can handle a jerk of an older brother like him, he can handle whatever the Gamemakers are planning. He and Leevy turn out to like the same music, and they talk about it for a while as Finch's death is re-broadcast and the station switches to a musical about a petty thief who falls in love with an honorable Peacekeeper.  
  
Everyone is about to disperse (no one has been in a rush) when Mayor Undersee appears personally on the platform, flanked by Mrs. Undersee and Madge. He turns on the microphone.  
  
"Friends in District Twelve," he says, "I think we can all see that the Games are nearing their close. I've just received word that mandatory viewing will begin two hours early tomorrow. Please come together here in the square, one more time, to support our dear children, Katniss and Peeta, and to support each other. Thank you."  
  
"We're baking tonight," Ed says. "Have bread for everyone tomorrow. To thank them."  
  
"Your mom's okay with that?"  
  
"It was her idea."  
  
"I have an idea, too," Leevy says. She gives me a quick hug, then runs off toward the Seam, her brother in tow. Sam comes over to me and says he had the best time ever, then promptly falls asleep. Ed carries him back to my house, and we put him down to bed just as Mom and Dad get back. Mom has some flour for our own baking, and gives it to Ed to help with tonight's project. I ask if they can use an extra pair of hands.  
  
"There's always a need to knead," Ed says seriously, then smiles and offers his hand. I take it and we head over to their place. We spend the night making long loaves of simple bread, spelling each other to sleep. Katniss stays up all night to let Peeta sleep in the arena, and as dawn comes, he takes over to let her sleep.   
  
I fall asleep on the couch, but wake up in the early afternoon in Peeta's room. I can see my own window from here. We used to send each other signals with flashlights at night. The new paint box is sitting on the desk. Peeta's things are carefully put away (they've been filming in here), but his jacket is draped artfully over a chair. His school books are stacked on the desk, with the page marked in the play where we left off before he was Reaped. I open the book. He's got notes on the slip of paper he's using as a bookmark, and has drawn a picture on the other side of it. Ironically, it's not a picture of Katniss. He's drawn Larkspur Wallace, playing the elderly scientist who first predicts that London will drown. He's shoved his math homework into the textbook. He'd apparently gotten stuck on a proof and put it aside the night before the Reaping. He only had a couple of steps left.  
  
I close the books. No matter what happens today, Peeta's days as a schoolboy are over. Victors aren't expected to go to school. Mr. Mellark says that Haymitch was some kind of genius when they were kids, but he's never even graduated from high school. None of the other victors have, either.  
  
"You're awake," Ed says from the door.  
  
"No, just sleepwalking," I answer.  
  
He comes in and sits down at the desk. "I figured Peeta wouldn't mind if you slept in here. It's more comfortable than the couch. And Dad pretty much blew a blood vessel when I said you could sleep in my bed."  
  
"No kidding."  
  
"I think he's not ready for any more surprise impending grandchildren." Ed looks at Peeta's school books. "Though I may not be the son he needs to warn about that."  
  
"Let's get him home. Then your dad can lecture him to his heart's content."  
  
"Wouldn't it be great if we could actually do something?"  
  
But of course, we can't, which is why they make us watch. When you can see someone you love walking straight into death and can't even yell to warn him, you know exactly how powerless you are.  
  
We bring out the bread, and a large placard that Ed has made to thank District Twelve for their support. Mayor Undersee has set out tables. To my surprise, Leevy is there with the old woman they call Greasy Sae, along with Gale and his brothers and a phalanx of other Seam kids, all carrying odds and ends of vegetables. Gale is carrying several pounds of meat and Greasy Sae is putting it into a huge kettle.  
  
Leevy runs over. "I read a story a long time ago. About everyone bringing a little bit of something to make a great soup. They called it stone soup, because they pretended it was made from a stone. I thought about it when Katniss used those rocks to heat up her soup, but when you said you were bringing bread, I figured, why not? We can all find something. And Gale went -- " She looks around, her eyes darting for Peacekeepers and cameras, but not finding them. Her voice drops. "He went hunting for everyone this morning."  
  
Ed goes over to Gale and holds out his hand. After a very, very long time, Gale shakes it.  
  
The Everdeens arrive with arms full of herbs, which go into the pot. Peeta's aunt, Rooba, brings in fresh butter from her cows. She's been very quiet through most of this. She and Mrs. Mellark aren't close, and, aside from a few times when the boys have covered for her in the butcher shop, she doesn't spend much time with them.  
  
I know in the end that all of this will turn into a tiny cup of soup and a thin slice of bread for everyone who comes, but it's not really the amount that counts. It's that thing in District Twelve, that thing that sleeps so often, that came awake when Katniss stood forward and volunteered for Prim. Everyone, in some way, wants to honor that today.  
  
Prim comes over to the table where we've set out the bread, and hugs Mr. Mellark. "Thank you," she says.  
  
"Why don't you take the first slice, Prim?" he suggests.  
  
I happen to glance up at the screen for the first time, and notice that we're live. Cressida and her team are filming from the platform, right under the screen. She catches Prim biting into the bread, then Prim looks around, embarrassed, and wipes butter off of her chin. Everyone laughs fondly.  
  
Mandatory viewing begins, and everyone settles in, the mask of easiness dropping away to reveal chewed nails and pale, haggard faces.  
  
The Gamemakers obviously plan for this to be the last day of the Games, as they show an increasingly fast montage of everything that's happened, from the building of the arena through the Reapings (Katniss gets the only full shot, screaming "I volunteer!") through the death of Finch yesterday. The music behind it is solemn and powerful, and as Finch is lifted up from the arena, the screen wipes up under her to reveal the studio. Caesar Flickerman is Claudius's guest, and he recalls each of the fallen tributes, and what he noted most about them. He always seems genuinely sad at this point, and in the past, he's generally been the only person each year to remember anything about District Twelve's tributes so late in the Games.   
  
This year, of course, everyone knows them. Unlike most of the Capitol, Caesar seems to be most concerned about Peeta, who he says is a striking and kind man with a quick mind and a gentle sense of humor, for whom he would grieve. About Katniss, he only says that she is as powerful a presence in person as she seems on the screen. Cato, he describes as driven and intense.  
  
The stylists come next. Cinna and Portia, Peeta's stylist, describe their notion of burning and how they got the idea. They laugh when asked for the secret of the fake fire and Portia says that they're not going to share trade secrets. "But what I want you to remember," Cinna says, "is that a stylist can only bring out what's true about a client. Those tributes you saw on the first night, burning in the darkness -- that's Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark. All Portia and I did was show them to you."  
  
Cato's stylist certainly looks shallower when she talks about making him look like stone, because stone is, well, durable. A brief shot of him in the chariot with Clove, both of them looking like granite statues, comes up. I had forgotten these costumes entirely.  
  
Haymitch and Brutus have been dragged into the studio, and we can all see that they'd both rather be nearly anywhere else, possibly beating each other to a pulp. Clearly, Haymitch has had the services of the stylists, as he is shaved, clean, and in impeccable clothes. He even seems sober.  
  
Brutus laughs when Claudius suggests that Cato might be at a disadvantage with two against one. "Maybe the girl could take him on her own," he says. "I don't underestimate that bow arm of hers. But if she doesn't drop the giant rock she's got tied to her apron strings, my boy will take both of them out in one swing. Your boy's useless," he tells Haymitch. "All he's going to do is get your girl killed. Almost did once already."  
  
"I always said," Haymitch says coldly, "that someday you were going to underestimate the wrong person in the wrong place. That'd be today."  
  
This gets a vicious cheer from District Twelve, which is, of course, aired live. Haymitch sees it and gives the district a thumbs up, but his murderous glare at Brutus doesn't waver. Frankly, if I were Claudius Templesmith, I'd be trying to find a good escape route right now.  
  
Instead, he listens to his earpiece, then announces, with great aplomb, "Our tributes have spent the morning resting, and they may wake up to some big surprises."

 

Haymitch and Brutus might well be at each other's throats, but they both react to this with the same stunned and angry expression. They could be brothers. Brothers plotting fratricide, but brothers nonetheless.

 

We don't find out for another ten minutes just what the "big surprises" are. Claudius's guest chairs are abruptly empty, with no explanation, and he spends some time going on happily about other "instigating events" at the close of past Hunger Games. The most common trick is with the water supply. We even get a rare flash on Haymitch's Games, showing him trying to climb a tree so rapidly desiccated that it snaps under his weight.

 

They finally return to the arena, going first to Katniss and Peeta. She's woken up and they've eaten. They're leaving the cave. She stops for a moment and rests her hand on the entrance, almost nostalgic, then moves on toward the stream.  
  
Which is gone. The cameras pan out. Every source of water in the woods has been cut off, even ones that Katniss never saw. The river in the ravine where Thresh died is gone, leaving only dry grass. Ponds, pools, creeks, even mud puddles are gone. They show a process of draining and drying that happened while Katniss and Peeta slept. The corner of the woods that they've called home is dying quickly. If they want water, they will have to go to the lake -- Cato's old killing grounds.  
  
But next to what awaits Cato, the dry streambed is a pleasant dream on a summer afternoon.  
  
Cato has slept on the far shore of the lake, surrounded by bushes. He sits up, drowsy, and blinks at the greenery.  
  
Then he scrambles back toward the lake. "Clove!"  
  
The camera focuses on the branches. Within them, a pair of human eyes looks out -- brown, ringed with dark lashes. I saw them close up while Clove tortured Katniss.  
  
Before Thresh killed her.  
  
Cato turns to another bush and lets out a yell. From it, another pair of eyes gleams out. A picture inset in the corner of the screen shows the girl from District Eight. Cato stumbles back and runs into another shrub. In this one, the eyes of the boy from Three shine.  
  
"What...?" Prim asks. "What are...?"  
  
Then the bushes come alive, and things leap from them.  
  
I scream.  
  
The things are wolves, but they walk on their hind legs, and their eyes are the eyes we saw in the bushes. More are crawling up from the lake, dripping with water.  
  
The screen splits. Cato and the mutts remain in the middle. On the right side, a holographic image of one of the things comes up. On the left, Claudius explains. "Our Gamemakers are inveterate readers, and these genetically engineered wolves are made to resemble a legendary creature called a werewolf -- a man who becomes a murderous wolf at certain times. These werewolf mutts are aggressive and hungry. They have tearing teeth" -- the holograph closes in to show them -- "four inch claws" -- again, these are shown, extended -- "and, to add to the terror, eyes that resemble those of our fallen tributes." He chuckles at something in his earpiece. "I've been told to assure our audience that the bodies have not been desecrated, and the effect is cosmetic only."  
  
Somehow, I don't believe him. Maybe they didn't dig the eyes out of the corpses, but they did something, because those eyes don't just _resemble_ the tributes' eyes. They're identical.  
  
"That's sick," Prim whispers as they close in on a small, curly-haired wolf with Rue's eyes.  
  
They're close enough to leap on Cato and kill him, though it could take a while with his body armor, but they don't. They just push him backward along the lake shore.  
  
Toward Katniss and Peeta.  
  
Prim realizes this at the same second I do, and grabs my hand convulsively. Her mother has been standing with the Hawthornes, and she suddenly pales and comes over to be with Prim.  
  
Cato manages to strike down one of the mutts with his sword (the one who resembles the boy from District Three), but the Clove-mutt knocks his sword from his hand with one swipe of her paw. The Marvel-mutt, who appeared from the lake, takes it in his teeth and drops it in the water. A small, reddish wolf nips at Cato's heels forcing him to run harder. It's Finch.  
  
Cato runs.  
  
The pack follows.  
  
Coverage cuts to Katniss and Peeta, who have arrived at the lake and filled their water skins, unaware that on the far side of a stand of trees, Cato is running hell-bent toward them, a pack of unspeakable horrors hot on his heels.  
  
Katniss spots a mockingjay in the trees and whistles Rue's song to it. A chorus of mockingjays takes it up. It is quite beautiful, but no one here is paying attention to it. The camera focuses on Katniss's pin. Madge Undersee gasps.  
  
The song of the mockingjays breaks, and Cato bursts through the trees. Katniss fires an arrow, but it bounces off his armor. He doesn't even notice. He just barrels between them.  
  
Katniss sees the mutts. She runs. Peeta runs after her. He's slowed by his bad leg, but not as much as he might be if not pursued by a vicious, killing pack.  
  
The mutts won't kill Katniss or Cato -- of course not, it's meant to be a battle between them, it's always been meant to be, the two strongest players with such different strategies, what could be more dramatic? But Peeta...  
  
I sit down on the ground, my legs suddenly without strength. I think of the unfinished geometry proof on Peeta's desk.  
  
Katniss reaches the Cornucopia and calls for Peeta, sending an arrow back into the pack and felling one of the wolves (the one with the eyes of Charlotte, from District Four, according to the picture that comes up), but he tells her to keep running and climb. She does. Cato has already made it to the top, but after a run around the entire lake, he is in no shape to challenge Katniss. She looks like she's about to shoot him, but then Peeta calls for her. He's climbing the Cornucopia awkwardly, his knife swinging in defensive arcs, his bad leg almost useless and hanging down dangerously far. Katniss runs to the edge and pulls him along.  
  
Cato gasps something, which Peeta is somehow able to translate as, "Can they climb it?"  
  
Then Katniss shrieks, a sound that we have never heard from her -- not just fear, but complete revulsion. She's recognized what's attacking them. Somehow, she manages to get Peeta further up, and for a second I think all will be well.  
  
Then one of them grabs the back of Peeta's calf, nearly pulling both of them down. Peeta cries out and Katniss screams "Kill it!" Blood is pouring from Peeta's leg. He swings at the wolf, but doesn't kill it. Instead, it falls when its teeth tear all the way through his muscle, ripping a piece of it off as it falls to the ground.  
  
Katniss doesn't notice. She just pulls him up and fires into the pack of mutts again, taking out the Thresh-mutt. It hardly matters. More are coming. She might fire until she loses her last arrow, but suddenly, Cato grabs Peeta and drags him to the edge of the Cornucopia, cutting off his air supply. Peeta, bleeding badly and in shock, isn't able to throw him. Katniss aims an arrow at Cato's face.  
  
"Shoot me and he goes down with me," Cato says.  
  
In the corner of the screen, Mrs. Everdeen and Mrs. Mellark are staring, horrified, up at their children.  
  
The camera closes in on Peeta. His hands are covered with blood from his own wound. His face is red from the lock Cato is holding him in. But his eyes are steady. He moves his finger, and makes an "X" on the back of Cato's hand. Katniss moves her bow just a fraction, then the arrow flies. Cato falls backward, letting go of Peeta by reflex. Katniss grabs Peeta and pulls him back.  
  
Down on the ground, Cato is fighting the mutts, but they are surrounding him. He dives into the Cornucopia and grabs a sword that had been left behind there. It doesn't help him much, though he's able to take out two of them (Rue's and Glimmer's pictures come up).  
  
On top of the Cornucopia, Katniss is holding Peeta, looking terrified. He is weakly holding his hand against the hole in his leg. Blood is pouring out around his fingers.  
  
Cato tries to climb back onto the Cornucopia, but the mutts are in the way, blocking him, dragging him down. They can't get through his body armor, but they've broken one of his arms. He finally falls to the ground. There's another crunching sound as his ankle is crushed between their powerful jaws.  
  
A reporter asks Mrs. Everdeen how long a person can go on while being gnawed on like a chew toy (though it isn't asked in precisely this way). She turns on him and draws her fist back. Gale catches it before she takes a swing. This, somehow, is not on the screen anywhere. I look up at the platform, where Cressida has her cameramen filming what must be a fascinating conversation around the soup kettle.  
  
Finally, Katniss looks down at Peeta's leg and realizes how severe the wound is. She takes off her jacket, then her shirt (it's a measure of how scared we all are that not a single boy from school catcalls at this), then puts her jacket back on and starts using her shirt to stop the blood. It isn't working.  
  
"Tourniquet," Prim says beside me.  
  
Mrs. Everdeen nods. She looks at the Mellarks. "She's going to have to make a tourniquet. But he could lose his leg."  
  
Even as they've been talking, Katniss cuts the sleeve off her shirt, twists it around his leg under the knee, and tightens it with her last arrow. She winces at it.  
  
Below, Cato continues fighting.  
  
And continues.  
  
All night. Nothing is sent in to hurry it up. They must be punishing him for spoiling their dramatic showdown.  
  
They play the anthem, but don't break from the coverage. A message flashes across that viewing is considered mandatory until the Capitol says otherwise. Katniss and Peeta shiver against the night as it passes. She won't let him sleep (Mrs. Everdeen says this is probably a good idea to keep better track of his condition, but not strictly necessary). Cato is dragged inside the Cornucopia. At home, we are permitted to sleep in shifts, as long as one member of a family remains to watch.  
  
I don't sleep.  
  
In the arena, the sun begins to rise. Mr. Mellark lets out a strangled sound when we see Peeta, who is white as a sheet. But he doesn't seem to care that he's nearly dead. He and Katniss are both covering their ears, and finally, he begs her to shoot Cato, to stop this agony, even if it means taking the arrow out of his tourniquet. Katniss agrees. She ties the cloth as tightly as she can, takes her last arrow, then leans over the edge of the Cornucopia and shoots Cato in the head.  
  
The cannon sounds.  
  
The trumpets announcing a victor do not.  
  
In District Twelve, we are holding our breath. Katniss and Peeta look confused, but manage to climb down the Cornucopia as soon as the mutts are gone. She steadies him, and they go back to the lake.  
  
Nothing happens.  
  
Claudius Templesmith fills the left half of the screen. He is smiling brightly. "Greetings to the final contestants of the Seventy-Fourth Hunger Games," he says. "The earlier revision has been revoked. Closer examination of the rule book has disclosed that only one winner may be allowed. Good luck, and may the odds be ever in your favor."  
  
Mr. Mellark is the first person to make a sound. It's a kind of choked half-scream, horror that he can't even let out. Prim starts crying, her hands buried in her hair. Mrs. Everdeen has her hands on her head, which she is shaking in negation. Ed is silent and still beside me.  
  
The square erupts in fury. A shot of us is pulled from the screen. A gang of Seam kids charges the platform and attacks the speakers. Ed grabs the nearest reporter and hurls him away. The images on the screen flicker and waver as power comes and goes.  
  
My throat is sore, and I realize I am screaming at everyone to stop, please stop. Leevy is running around grabbing people as well, and I join her, trying to get everyone I can and settle them before... before...  
  
A speaker beside me stutters out Katniss's voice, "You shoot me and go home and live with it!", and then there is the whine of feedback as power surges through the speakers. Leevy finds Gale and screams at him to stop the bigger kids before Prim and Posy get hurt, which seems to get through to him. I yell at Ed and Jonadab to stop Madge before she rushes on a pair of Peacekeepers. It actually takes both of them to haul her back, and she does manage to scratch the face of the redheaded Peacekeeper, though he's one of the good ones and pretends it was an accident.  
  
The rest of the Peacekeepers finally manage to push the crowd back from the platform. The live feed is restored as Peeta says, "We both know they have to have a victor. It can only be one of us. Please take it. For me. I love you, and it's not worth it for me to go back without you. There's no sense in it. I -- "  
  
But Katniss is not listening. Instead, she grabs the leather pouch that she last had out when Finch died -- the one she's packed with nightlock berries. Peeta grabs her wrist to stop her, but instead, she hands him half of them.  
  
The angry mob stops. District Twelve trembles.  
  
Katniss and Peeta hold up the berries.  
  
Count to three.  
  
But before they can swallow the berries, Claudius Templesmith is back, looking flustered and terrified. He declares them winners.  
  
There is no cheer.  
  
The hovercraft appears and pulls them up, Peeta's leg gushing blood into the golden morning. On board, he is whisked off for medical care while Katniss pounds on a window, screaming for him. I think of my dream, where she is trapped behind a glass wall. But here, I'm even further away from him than she is.  
  
None of us can help him now. He's in the hands of the Capitol.  
  
And we are at the mercy of fate.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While Katniss and Peeta recover, Delly prepares for the return of her friend.

**Chapter Eight**  
Reporters are charging at us for comments, but the Peacekeepers actually keep them back. I wonder why -- after all, surely the Capitol will want our gratitude for Peeta and Katniss's lives aired -- but then I see that Mayor Undersee is trying to make his way over. Cray finally leads him through the crowd and instructs the Peacekeepers to surround us. It isn't an entirely comfortable feeling.  
  
"I've just spoken to Haymitch on the telephone," Mayor Undersee says. "Peeta is in surgery on the hovercraft. He's lost a lot of blood."  
  
"Will he live?" Mrs. Mellark asks. "Is my boy dying?"  
  
Mayor Undersee doesn't answer immediately, and when he finally does, all he says is, "It's touch and go. His heart stopped on the table, but they got it going again." He signals. "We're all going back to my place. Haymitch will call there with any news."  
  
"Is there anything on Katniss?" Prim asks softly as we start moving, trying not to let the Mellarks hear concern for anyone other than Peeta. "Is she all right?"  
  
"Haymitch said she's not hurt physically," Mayor Undersee says gently. "But she's sleeping now."  
  
Gale, walking beside Prim, puts his arm around her.  
  
It takes a long time to make our way across the square, trying to march in step with the Peacekeepers who are keeping the crowd off of us. We finally hear the start of muted celebrations. Whatever happens to Peeta, District Twelve has a victor, which will make a better year for everyone. But it all seems so strange and unreal, and Peeta's heart stopped on the operating table.  
  
We finally get to the mayor's house and the door is shut behind us. The Peacekeepers form a guard outside the door.  
  
There is a special telephone in the mayor's office, attached to a live video feed, though nothing shows on it now. We wait together, in shocked silence. Madge comes to sit with me. Mrs. Undersee brings us water and sandwiches. She is shaking, and I wonder if she is thinking of her sister, who died the last time District Twelve had a victor.  
  
It is more than an hour later when a soft ringing sound breaks our silence. Mayor Undersee switches on the telephone screen. It isn't Haymitch, but Effie Trinket. Her pink wig is askew and her mascara is running.  
  
"My boy?" Mr. Mellark says without preliminaries.  
  
"He's going to be all right," Effie says, and her voice is rough, as though she's been crying. "But his poor leg. They had to take his poor leg.  Everything from the knee down."  
  
"But he's going to be all right?" Jonadab repeats.  
  
She nods and sobs into a handkerchief. This doesn’t seem to be an artful cry. Though I would not have believed it if someone else tried to tell it to me, I think that Effie Trinket is genuinely upset. "They stopped the bleeding, and... and... got his heart going... and his vitals... strong." She stops to weep again, then finally manages, "His brain is normal. All the waves and things. They're measuring. He's still asleep. Haymitch is with him. But he'll be all right. Haymitch will call about what to do next."  
  
We will worry about his "poor leg" later, I'm sure, but right now, "he'll be all right" is all that matters.   
  
Mrs. Everdeen gives enough time for the relief of this to sink in, then says, "And Katniss?"  
  
"We had to sedate her, the dear thing," Effie says. "She's very upset. She was screaming for him, and no one could get close to her. She's sleeping now. She's dehydrated and hypo... hypo... too cold. They're warming her up and getting fluid into her. And of course, she's too skinny. I could see her ribs!" In District Twelve, this is hardly noteworthy, but Effie is clearly shocked by it. "I'll go stay with her now, but you should know that they'll both be all right. They're going to fix Katniss's ear, too." She forces a smile. "And they're victors! They'll never want for anything again!" The smile breaks and she sobs. "Except for Peeta's poor, dear leg..."  
  
Someone comes to lead her away, possibly so that she can also be sedated.  
  
Mayor Undersee ends the call. Mr. Mellark is shaking with relief, holding on tightly to Mrs. Mellark. For the first time, Mrs. Undersee seems to notice Gale and me, and that we are neither Everdeens nor Mellarks.  
  
"This may just be... family..."  
  
"I'm Katniss's cousin," Gale says dryly. "Everyone in Panem knows that."  
  
I feel like I'm about to be asked to leave, but Ed says, "And Delly's in our family." He puts his arm around me and looks around defensively, but no one challenges him.  
  
No one seems to know what to talk about. Prim finally settles on medicine, and tells Mrs. Mellark about the amazing prosthetic limbs they can make in the Capitol, which she's been reading about in the school library. Mrs. Mellark hangs on her every word.  
  
Finally, in the late afternoon, Haymitch calls. He looks drawn and haggard. "Katniss first, because it's quicker," he says. "They're operating on her ear right now. They do it a hundred times a week, and they could do it in their sleep. She's not in any medical trouble."  
  
No one fails to hear the qualifier there. I wonder what trouble Haymitch thinks she _is_ in.  
  
"I've been with Peeta all day," he says. "He's out of surgery, and he woke up for a few minutes. I haven't told him about his leg yet. Did Effie tell you?"  
  
"She told us," Mrs. Mellark says. "Primrose says there are good prosthetics. You see that he gets the best sort."  
  
"That'll have to wait a couple of days," Haymitch says. "It's a complicated surgery, and he needs to get back a little of his strength. But he was lucid when he woke up. He asked about Katniss. He seemed to understand where he was. Mentally, I think he's in better shape than she is, though neither of them is exactly on top of things right now. Of course, they put him back under right away. He needs rest."  
  
"What do you mean, neither of them is on top of things?" Mrs. Everdeen asks. "What's wrong with Katniss? Effie Trinket said she was upset."  
  
"Effie puts a good spin on things," Haymitch says. "Katniss is a little bit beyond upset. She was raving. She thought the doctors were trying to kill Peeta. That's why they had to lock her out. It's not going to help when she finds out that she killed the leg with the tourniquet, but before anyone says anything, it absolutely saved the rest of him. Katniss won't see it that way, though."  
  
"What do we need to do?" Mr. Mellark asks.  
  
Haymitch thinks about it. "Keep doing what you're doing with the reporters. They're eating it up, and it'll take some pressure off of Katniss and Peeta while they're recovering. And... I don't know exactly how to say it, but... they're not going to get a lot of time off from each other. They may need us to help them get a little space."  
  
"What do you mean?" Prim asks.  
  
"Just..." He looks around, and his gaze rests on Mrs. Undersee. "I want to try and avoid bird incidents when they get back, okay?"  
  
She nods. "Got it."  
  
No one knows what to say to this odd comment. Mrs. Mellark steps forward. "When Peeta wakes up, you tell him his family loves him, and we can't wait to see him."  
  
Haymitch raises his eyebrow. Under it, his eyes are ice cold. "I'll tell him, but given that you left him thinking that you didn't care much if he died, I don't know if he'll believe me."  
  
"I'll convince him when he gets home."  
  
"You better. 'Cause, lady, if you ever hurt that boy again, you're going to answer to me, and I'm not a confused eleven year old kid." He pushes a button and the call ends.  
  
Mrs. Mellark looks down at her feet. There is nothing to say to this. After a while, she looks up at Mrs. Undersee and says, "What does he mean, 'bird incidents'?"  
  
She sits down and starts rubbing her head. "My sister Maysilee was his ally in the arena. My _twin_ sister."  
  
"I remember," Mrs. Mellark says. "I was only a couple of years behind you."  
  
"He let her walk away, and she was killed by mutt birds. He came when she screamed and sat with her until she died."  
  
"And he thought you were her when he came home," Mrs. Everdeen says. "I remember that. You finally cut and dyed your hair so he'd stop calling you Maysilee."  
  
"Exactly. And he 'protected' me from robins, blue jays, mockingjays... pretty much anything that flew. If he saw one around me, he'd scare it off or kill it. I told him to stop, but he wouldn't. That's why my parents gave you Maysie's bird, Ruth -- Haymitch tried to skewer it in its cage so it couldn't kill me. Well, Maysilee, anyway." She sighs. "Katniss is a whole lot closer to Peeta than Haymitch was to Maysilee. I think he means that if she doesn't stop protecting him, she's going to drive them both crazy. I have no idea what he means to do about it, though. They'll never let them back off the storyline now."

She looks around, wild-eyed, but Mayor Undersee says, "No one's listening in here."  
  
We wait another two hours, but there's no more news. The government will expect the bakery to stay open (Jonadab and Sarey volunteer to watch it so his parents can stay here), and Ed, Gale, Prim, and I are expected to be at school tomorrow. I invite Prim to stay with me. Everyone else heads home.  
  
Prim lies awake for a long time on a pile of pillows my mother sets out by my front window. There are still people in the square, and they are in full celebration mode now that the shock has worn off. Around midnight, she sighs and says, "Katniss isn't going to feel like celebrating, is she?"  
  
"Probably not."  
  
"I do. I mean, I'm worried about Peeta and stuff, but they're coming home, Delly! They're really coming home. Isn't it okay to be really happy about that?"  
  
I sit beside her and cuddle her. "Of course it is."  
  
She smiles, then goes distant. "Did Haymitch mean my sister's crazy?"  
  
"Sometimes people go a little crazy after something bad happens. But she's coming home, right? So you'll be able to help her, just like she always helped you."  
  
"My mom was crazy after Daddy died. She got better." Prim nods to herself. "We better get some sleep. School."  
  
We sleep, and in the morning, I loan Prim one of my old dresses for school. We meet up with Ed about half an hour earlier than we need to, because we know that the reporters will be all over them. They are. Prim bubbles on enthusiastically about all the things she means to do with Katniss when she gets home. Ed jokes about how he can finally stop doing Peeta's chores for him, the layabout. They ask if we know which houses they've been assigned in the Victors' Village, but we don't. They ask if we know what their talents are, or if anyone will ever hear Katniss sing again, since that's what Peeta fell in love with her over (supposedly). Prim manages to divert this -- after Rue, I doubt Katniss is going to be singing much -- by asking if they've ever heard the famous "valley song." They haven't, and they desperately want to. Apparently, Haymitch promised to find someone to sing it, but they never got around to it. She sings it quite prettily. Madge comes to collect us, saying that we still have to go to school, which the reporters accept, and she walks the rest of the way with us.  
  
When we come through the door, someone gives a quick signal, then everyone turns and gives us the salute that they gave Katniss when she volunteered.  
  
Prim and Ed return it.  
  
We go to class.  
  
In literature, we all present our poems. I tell Mrs. Hudock that I'm not finished. She says she can't technically require anything until after the last events of the Games anyway.  
  
Over the next three days, we get news in small bits, surrounded by shots of an ecstatic Capitol crowd. Other victors, most noticeably Johanna Mason and Finnick Odair, are also excited, though Johanna is a bit sarcastic about the whole thing.

Peeta is declared strong enough to have the surgery to attach his new leg, which will be wired into his nerves and should move naturally. Katniss wakes up long enough ask if Peeta is alive. Peeta makes it through his surgery, but is going to be awkward on his new leg for a little while. Otherwise, he is recovering well. His doctors even say that he accepting having lost the leg much better than they expected. Katniss can hear perfectly, and all of her injuries have been healed. This, we hear privately. Publically, all that's being said is they are going to have their reunion live, and have been apart since Peeta went into surgery. I wonder if this is part of Haymitch's strategy to give them "space."  
  
If so, the Capitol is not cooperating, as, from the time they rise up onto Caesar Flickerman's stage together a week after the Games, they are thrust together, and neither of them seems to mind. If anything, Katniss seems determined to crawl as close to Peeta as it is physically possible to be, even closer than the furnishings and sets demand. They have to watch the official version of the Games together, the one that will be made available to anyone who wants to relive them. This never includes the filler material. No interviews, no visits to the Districts. Just the Games, from the Reaping through the victory. They follow a story arc for the victor -- or, in this case, victors. Of course, they don't show Peeta nearly losing his mind for killing a girl. They do show him manipulating the Career pack to keep them from immediately going after Katniss, though he wants to get close enough to her to get her the bow Glimmer took. They show Katniss with Rue, and make a very convincing show of Peeta and Katniss's feelings for each other growing. It's actually the best of these I remember seeing.  
  
I keep working on my poem. I try it in rhyme. I try it focusing on Ed's experience with the mines. I try looking at my brother and Leevy's brother, now playing together in the square or on the Seam at all waking hours. I think about Peeta's bloody fingers, making an X on Cato's hand. I think about Gale stopping Mrs. Everdeen from hitting a reporter, and about Haymitch trying to protect Mrs. Undersee from a caged canary. Mostly, I think about Katniss, throwing herself against the glass when they took Peeta from her. Nothing I can write seems worthy of that. In comparison, it's all either trite or overwrought.   
  
Katniss stumbles over words again in their second meeting, for an interview with Caesar Flickerman. She can't name when she fell in love with Peeta -- Caesar Flickerman helps her out by pointing out when the rest of Panem noticed it, and she jumps on it. It's believable enough after everything. But the moment she convinces me is when they tell her about Peeta's leg. She buries her face against his chest for several minutes, and needs to be coaxed out. She continues clinging to his shirt for the rest of the interview, as if he might be ripped away from her at any moment. He keeps his arms protectively around her. The Gamemakers are selling this as hard as they can, but I feel like they'd do just as well if they stopped asking questions and just showed the way she can't let him out of her sight or stop touching him.  
  
Which may be what Haymitch called a "bird incident." It doesn't look healthy, though I'm sure in the Capitol, they're transported with romantic elation.  
  
We watch the train leave the Capitol on television after the interview, which marks the official end of the Hunger Games in the Capitol. Caesar and Claudius have a grand finale party, where all of the fans dance and have fun, then coverage goes back to the normal schedule. The giant screen in the square remains up for the victory festivities, but it's dormant most of the time now.  
  
I dream about the mine again, only this time, I can see Katniss on the other side of the glass, screaming madly. Ed is trying to pick the lock on the door of Peeta's room. The girls who guard him are watching with mild interest. I look down and see that I have a bow and arrow in my hands, but I've never even tried to shoot, and I don't know what I'm supposed to shoot at. Black coal dust seeps out under the door like spreading blood.  
  
I wake up early, throw away all the attempts I've made at my poem, and start over. I'm sure that Mrs. Hudock will recognize the images from the Games, which she forbade, but it's the most truth I've come to. Katniss is not the eulogized lover. She is the poet's voice -- screaming, inchoate, and full of love for the dying man she can't reach, the dying man whose black blood has always been our lifeline, whose veins in the earth have always been our sustenance. He has no chance. His heart has stopped. But he has a will to live, to be himself, and somehow, as she screams, he opens his eyes and looks at her.  
  
 _I fall at last to the earth,_ I write.  
 _into the gentle embrace of trees and soil,_ _  
 _under the blanket of the sky,_  
 _and cling close to my love,_  
 _who, dying, breaks_  
 _and who, broken, lives.__  
  
Mrs. Hudock does not mark me down for using the imagery. Ed reads the poem then says, "Delly, I'm going to ask once, and then I promise not to ask again. This... you and me. Is it really because of Peeta? Are you -- ?"  
  
I roll my eyes. "Give me a break, Ed. It's about them, not about... _that_. Peeta's my friend."  
  
"You're sure?" He shakes his head. "No, wait, that's twice, and I promised to only ask once. I'm not going to turn into my mother. I believe you. Do you want to come to the platform with us? I'm pretty sure the Hawthornes are coming with the Everdeens."  
  
I go. There is not time for any sort of real ceremony. I barely recognize my oldest friend when he steps off the train at Katniss's side -- he is thin and pale and limping badly. Mrs. Everdeen jumps in quickly and tells Katniss how her cousins can't wait to see her, pointing at Gale. She manages to hide any surprise she might feel at the sudden expansion of her family, and goes to greet them, while Peeta greets us. He smiles, and that's at least something that hasn't changed. A reporter asks Mrs. Everdeen how she feels about Katniss's boyfriend and she very firmly plays the role Haymitch assigned: She says Katniss is too young for a boyfriend. Peeta makes a great show of moving away from her. I see her hand move toward him, then she quickly draws it away and laughs nervously while a reporter says, "Someone's in trouble!"  
  
I do not qualify for an invitation to the formal banquet at the mayor's house, where only Peeta and Katniss's immediate families go to dine with important members of the District government (liaisons to the Capitol, mostly, and Cray, and the reporters). The Hawthornes don't qualify, either, which I hear about from little Vick Hawthorne, who has joined my brother and Leevy's for their soldier game on the square. "Gale's real mad," he says, between bursts of invisible gunfire. He falls down, thrashing dramatically, when Sam hits him from a sniper's nest under the willow. He asks me to give a token (a dry leaf he's found on the ground) to his true love, Dianner Teets. Dianner herself, a pretty little girl whose mother teaches at the elementary school, rushes in, saying that she's a special doctor from the Capitol who can fix anything, just like they fixed up Peeta, and Vick lives to see another pretend fight.  
  
Ed gets out of the banquet at around eight and tells me I didn't miss anything, and he practically fell asleep at the table. He says he has a friend with a band that's playing at Murphy's tonight, and asks if I'd like to go. I say yes, and we have a lovely time. It is our first date. He says he invited Peeta and Katniss to double, but there are still cameras following them around and they have to make nice with the important people. "Also, there's something weird there," he says, then orders us hamburgers. Murphy's is about the only place that kids in District Twelve can afford to go on a date, and even that's sometimes a stretch. It doubles as a rough miners' bar, which gives it a very strange vibe sometimes.  
  
As we walk home, Ed says, "I haven't told Peeta about you and me. I think it might weird him out."  
  
"Okay."  
  
"I plan to, when things are, you know, more settled."  
  
"Sure."  
  
"You're not mad?"  
  
"Am I supposed to be?"  
  
"Mom would be mad at Dad." He looks around. "And I think Peeta would be mad at Katniss. I think he _is_ mad at her about something. Whatever Haymitch did for space must have been a doozy."  
  
If Peeta is angry at Katniss, it is not in evidence as they kiss for any number of cameras over the next week, but I take Ed's advice and avoid "the K word" when we see each other, which is actually pretty often, considering Peeta's schedule.   
  
He is assigned a house in the Victors' Village three houses down from hers, and my family helps the Mellarks get him moved in. We are going to clear out the walls in the attic to create a huge art studio for Peeta, and I am getting some measurements in a little side room for Ed when I hear Peeta and Mrs. Mellark come in. I assume they're just working, and that they know I’m there, and I don't make my presence known.  
  
"What a fine, big house," Mrs. Mellark says.  
  
Peeta sighs. "It's nice. Thanks for helping with the kitchen."  
  
"I think your dad might try to move into your kitchen."  
  
"He's welcome to. It's a big place to rattle around in alone."  
  
Mrs. Mellark pauses a moment, then says, "Peeta, I got you something while you were gone." She picks up the wooden paint box that has been in his room. "It's not much, only what I could get here in the district. I got it when you were hurt. I got it while you were... while you were in the mud. I got it to give to you when you made it home." She pushes the box at him.  
  
He takes it and opens it slowly, then puts it down. For the first time that I ever remember, Peeta embraces his mother. Neither of them says anything, though I think Mrs. Mellark is crying. I stay hidden until they go back to the kitchen, as I think I've just seen something I wasn't supposed to see, and I pretend I didn't see anything at all when I go downstairs.  
  
As my family and I head back to town, I glance over at Katniss's house. She is standing in her front door, looking over at Peeta's place. As I watch, Prim calls her back in, nearly dancing in her excitement at having her sister back.  
  
There's a big celebration the next day in the square, with fine foods brought in from the Capitol (Peeta introduces his father to about a dozen pastries that he wants to learn how to bake) and bands and singers we've seen on television, who don't seem quite real even when they're sitting across the table and talking about the charms of the great outdoors. A popular boy singer asks for Prim Everdeen's autograph and crows when he gets it. Prim blushes and hides behind the Hawthornes.  
  
Everyone is dancing except for Peeta. I ask if he'd like to, and he grumbles something about his leg, then tells me to go ahead. Instead, I sit with him and tell him how awful Izzarel was in the play. I tell him maybe he could take up acting as a talent. He mutters, "I'm not the actor around here," but doesn't explain himself. I finally go off to dance with Ed. The cameras are back when the song ends, which means Peeta and Katniss are all over each other, and I stay away, hoping they'll take the opportunity to work out whatever the issue is.  
  
The cameras finally leave after Parcel Day, when the first shipment of regular food for everyone in District Twelve comes. Everyone is happy. Then the cameras are gone, and everything goes back to normal.  
  
Ed graduates from school. He has been speaking unhappily about not having anything to do, but Peeta gives him a small package. Inside of it is a key. The key goes to Fisher's Hardware.  
  
"That's too much," Ed says.  
  
"Nah. I'm going to keep working on my studio, and it's a pain to special order every nail. We need a hardware store. Didn't you say you were thinking about it?"  
  
"Still -- "  
  
"I've got to spend it somewhere."  
  
"Dad'll need me in the bakery."  
  
"You hate baking."  
  
"Yeah, but you're not working there."  
  
"Who says? I don't have to work, but that doesn’t mean I _can't_."  
  
So we all go over to the old place, which is filled with old furniture that smells like old pipe smoke. Mr. Fisher died without any heirs two years ago, and all of his things are still there, along with most of his inventory. The rooms above the shop are fusty and stodgy. Peeta grins and says that now we can all invade Ed's place.  
  
But Peeta doesn't invade anyone's place. He buries himself in his house, painting and baking, and in daily visits to Haymitch's. Haymitch has started drinking again, and Peeta's furious about it, but he goes over there anyway, to take care of him. He doesn't say why. Other people might think it's because he feels he owes Haymitch -- he wouldn't be alone in that -- but I think it's more than that. I think that his visits to Haymitch are a kind of desperate lifeline that he's throwing himself, a chance to take care of someone who needs him.

He's friendly when I come to visit, and he's completely ecstatic that the family is, more or less, getting along. "I should have died sooner," he says. "Well, almost died. Who knew that's all it would take?"  
  
I don't let him see how horrified I am at this particular comment. Instead, I coach him through his unfinished geometry proof. He wants to finish his education, even though he knows that school is out of the question. He says goodbye when I leave, and that he's glad to see me, but he never seeks me out. I look out my window at night sometimes, toward his old window, expecting somehow to see the flickering flash light code we made up. It never comes.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Delly learns part of what's holding Peeta back, and helps him take his first big steps toward healing after the Games.

**Chapter Nine**  
Only one thing of interest happens during our three week break from school. A trio of Peacekeepers from the Capitol arrives, not to talk to Peeta and Katniss but to talk to everyone who was interviewed. They want to know if our site producer, Cressida, talked about going anywhere. She has, they say, disappeared, along with her cameramen, and they fear foul play.  
  
I am at Ed's store when they arrive, and I'm sure he remembers as well as I do that she asked where the tracks lead once they go north of Twelve. He scratches his head and says, "Didn't she say something about the old Capitol, Delly?"  
  
I blink. "Um..."  
  
"Yeah," he goes on. "She said she thought the waters might be down enough for the monuments and things to show. She was talking about doing some diving to film them. Remember, Delly? Her one cameraman said he was a good swimmer."  
  
I have no idea why Ed is spinning this lie, but I assume he's got a good reason, so I say, "Oh, right. She wanted to see the..." I make a dome with my hands, like I've heard the old Capitol had.  
  
"Right, the dome." He gives the Peacekeepers a winning smile and says, "Everyone thinks we're practically at the coast here. It's about three hundred miles outside the fence before you hit water, I think, and that's not counting taking a boat to the old Capitol. She probably took a bad turn and ended up in the wrong ruins."  
  
"Or maybe she's getting great shots of that pointy monument that used to be there," I add. "The top might even be above water by now."  
  
"Hmph," the head Peacekeeper says. "Not likely. Way I hear it, it got bombed to rubble before the water came."  
  
"Guess she'll find out," Ed tells him.  
  
"Or get killed trying." The Peacekeeper makes a disgusted face and mutters something about "chasing around after damned artists," then shakes Ed's hand and leaves, his colleagues in tow.  
  
"Good memory," I say.  
  
"The dome was a nice touch," he tells me.  
  
"What if she really is in trouble?"  
  
"You think she'll be in less trouble if they find her?"  
  
There's no arguing with this. We see the Peacekeepers making a random check of the fence. They apparently see something that amuses them, because they are laughing and making crude gestures while they wait for the train. When it finally comes, they are gone, and the Capitol with them, at least until the next time they decide to drop in.  
  
Life settles back into its normal routine. School starts again. It's different with Peeta, Edder, and Katniss not in attendance, but it's not alien. School is school. I imagine that if Panem collapsed into the ocean and we had to learn how to breathe underwater like fish, within a week, Mr. Durigan would be threatening detention if we swam out the windows and Mrs. Hudock would invent air bubbles just so we could recite our literature assignments out loud. There would be very wet assemblies, and octopus wrestling would draw big crowds.  
  
I start going to Peeta's after school to share whatever we're learning. He seems glad of this, and wants to know even about classes he didn't like.  He even does the homework assignments with me. He's a bear for gossip, too, though I'm sure he doesn't think of it that way. But the goings out and breakings up of our various classmates interest him, and he wants to know who's singing at assemblies and who's doing sports. I tell him he should just come back to school, but he admits that it's flatly forbidden. "I'd be a distraction, anyway," he says. "And I never know when the cameras are going to show up. Besides, I'll have to go away in a few months for the Victory Tour anyway."  
  
"You sound bored," I say.  
  
"You have no idea."  
  
I close my literature textbook. We've moved beyond the Great Gathering and into the works of early Panem, when everyone was apparently buzzing like a happy little bee, building a new world on the ruins of the old one. Mrs. Hudock calls it the Era of Optimism. "Why don't you go see your friends?" I ask him. "They're still out in the square at night. Cyprian Murphy's always hoping you'll drop by."  
  
"To do what? I can't exactly play pick-up games with them, which is pretty much all we did. And if we wrestled, I could kill someone pretty easily with this thing." He taps his leg, then shudders. "I wish I didn't know what I could kill people with."  
  
"Peeta..."  
  
"It's the first thing I think about if I'm in a room somewhere. If someone attacks, what do I see that I could hit back with? It's like it's not even my head sometimes.  Like they took a piece of my brain out and put in a fake piece instead."  
  
"Do you want to talk about it?"  
  
He considers it, then shakes his head. "No. I want to talk about..." He opens the book and scans the short story I'm reading for class. "I want to talk about why Junjing Hui decided to become Jennie Hudson when she built the glass tower. Doesn't seem like an improvement."  
  
So we talk about a fictional architect and her fictional building, then go to the end of chapter questions about why so many people changed their names after the Great Gathering. Peeta says that the Malarkeys became the Mellarks because when they got to Panem (or what would become Panem), they found out that "malarkey" meant nonsense or crazy stories here.  
  
"Probably because of some relative of yours and Ed's," I tell him.   
  
He smiles. "Thanks for coming, Delly. You don't have to if you don't want to, but I really appreciate it."  
  
"You know, you could come into town and visit me. Or your parents. Or you could come to the square. You don't have to play the games. I never do. I've been sitting out with Leevy Cooley and doing homework while Sam plays."  
  
He shakes his head. "I don't think so."  
  
"Peeta, they're your friends."  
  
"That's what I thought. But not a single one of them, other than you, has managed to walk up the road to say hello."  
  
"Well, you haven't been walking down the road, either."  
  
Peeta narrows his eyes, then reaches under the table where we're sitting. A minute later, he slaps his left shoe down beside the books. The upper is in shreds, and ripping away from the sole. There is a large hole where his toe belongs. "I don't walk very far, Delly," he says, his voice carefully controlled. "This is the best I have left. And this? Is from walking around my house and my garden, and over to Haymitch's next door."  
  
"They're all like that?" I ask.  
  
"Yeah. Well, I have one pair of shiny dress shoes that Portia sent me -- they have some kind of special padding in them -- but I'm not going to walk around in them. I'd look like an idiot."  
  
I take the shoe from the table and find a pile of ones like it in a closet off the kitchen. He has apparently been throwing them at the wall, which is covered with scuff marks. His victors' crown is hanging from a peg. From the looks of it, he's been using it as a target.

I put all the shoes in my backpack, come out, and say, "I'll take them to the shop. I can fix them."  
  
"They'll just wear through again."  
  
"Yeah, and the world will keep on turning anyway." I give him a hug, even though he's annoying me, and kiss his cheek. "I'll get them up here to see you."  
  
"Not if they don't want to come."  
  
I shake my head and leave.  
  
When I get back to the store, Prim is there trying on a pair of pink kitten heels. Katniss more or less ignores her clothes unless her mother forces her to shop, but Prim has been enjoying herself, and I'm glad. She twirls in the new shoes, and I clap, setting down my bag. It gapes open.  
  
"Are those Peeta's?" she asks, shocked.  
  
"Yeah. Guess the foot's a little hard on them."  
  
"Is that why he's sulking over there? I thought it was something Katniss did."  
  
"Did she say that?"  
  
Prim shakes her head, then mumbles, "She dreams. Sometimes she says, 'I'm sorry, Peeta' and things like that. Don't tell anyone I said that."  
  
I consider the idea that this is about Katniss, but I don't think it is. I think Peeta has lost his leg, and for all the Capitol's bragging about how well he adjusted and how good the new leg is, I think it's hitting him. And if Katniss did something at the same time, then he probably thinks it's because she can't stand to look at him or something idiotic like that.  
  
But I don't say that.  
  
Instead, I go down to the cellar and fix Peeta's shoes as well as I can.  
  
I go over to Ed's when I'm finished. Jonadab and Sarey are there as well (I can actually tell that she's pregnant now), and we're trying to turn old man Fisher's belongings into something that looks like an eighteen-year-old's house. I want to get the pipe tobacco smell out, but Ed declares that he's getting used to it and may take up the habit himself. I find him a pipe and an ancient envelope of tobacco. He takes two puffs, runs to the bathroom to throw up, then announces that, instead of taking up the habit, he'll use the pipes to make an artistic tribute to Mr. Fisher.  
  
The question of why I'm carrying a sack full of left shoes comes up, and both Ed and Jonadab look like they've hit the end of their patience.   
  
"Personally," Jonadab says, "I think it's time to stop coddling him and remind him what big brothers are for."  
  
"He's been through a lot," Sarey reminds him.  
  
"And he's putting himself through more. Wasn't he going to help Dad at the bakery?"  
  
Ed shrugs. "Dad says he doesn't need any help."  
  
"But Peeta needs to help him anyway." Jonadab examines a smoking chest, with a drawer full of odds and ends and a cabinet with a can of tobacco and a rack of six pipes. "Dad thinks Peeta doesn't want to see him." He takes out the pipes and tosses one of them to Ed. "See what you can turn them into."  
  
After Jonadab and Sarey leave, Ed and I cuddle on the smelly sofa for a while, until I decide it's probably time to go home.   
  
He hands me my bag, taking the opportunity to grab one more long kiss, then says, "We'll do something about him."  
  
Nothing happens the next day, though Peeta seems glad to get whole shoes back, and walks me to the green in the Victors' Village. We might have stayed out there, but Katniss and her mother are out, admiring the autumn foliage. She straightens up a little and starts to smile at him, but he turns away. She looks at her feet and heads off in the other direction. He goes back to his house. I look at Mrs. Everdeen and give her an exaggerated shrug. She puts her hands in the air, then goes after Katniss.

I go to the hardware store to help Ed get his inventory in order. He's realized that selling non-perishable items means that he can't count as much on repeat business as his parents do, and he's working himself into a terror about it. I've helped my father with the books at the shoe store, so I sit down with him and explain, as well as I can, how it will work. He says he'll have to be careful. "Dad says that Haymitch isn't allowed to help out very much. He's surprised they let Peeta even buy the place. So I definitely can't count on any help getting bailed out if I go under. Not that I'd ask, but… you know."

"I know."

I find other ways to calm him down for a little while, but decide to leave a little before eleven.   I have school the next day. The plan is originally to go straight out to Peeta's after classes, but I decide to stop at home, and it turns out to be a good thing. When I get to the square, I hear a great deal of whooping. I set my bag down. A gang of Sixteens (well, technically, we're Seventeens now, though most of us are still actually still sixteen) is gathered around something that's been lifted into the air.  
  
Someone.  
  
Peeta's brothers have taken one of the curtains from his living room and turned it into a stretcher with a couple of the curtain rods. They're carrying Peeta above their heads while he calls them every name in the book and makes ineffectual punches at them. They cheerfully walk him around the bakery. The crowd follows.  I go after them.  
  
"What do you think?" Ed says. "Should he go in with the pigs?"  
  
"Edder! Jonadab!" Mrs. Mellark yells from an upper window and starts running down. "You let your brother go!"  
  
Mr. Mellark comes to the back door and leans on the frame, watching curiously. Then I notice why.  
  
Peeta is laughing.  His swings at his brothers are playful, and they're both grinning crazily.  
  
Mrs. Mellark runs out into the yard and grabs Jonadab's arm. "What is the matter with you?"  
  
"He's late for chores," Ed says.  
  
"Peeta doesn't need to do chores anymore."  
  
"He's rich, not dead," Jonadab says.  
  
Mrs. Mellark looks at Mr. Mellark. "Are you going to do something about this?"  
  
He shrugs. "I guess I should probably tell them not to throw him in the pigpen. It's not sanitary if he's going to come in and work."  
  
Peeta laughs, and his brothers put him down. He takes a few lurching steps (the mud is obviously not easy on the prosthetic), then grins at his father and says, "Sorry I'm late. What are we working on?"  
  
"Cheese buns, if you and your brothers can stop goofing around for a few minutes."  
  
Peeta smiles and goes into the bakery.  
  
Jonadab and Ed take a bow, and we all applaud.  
  
I spend a pleasant hour on my front porch with Leevy, working on our first lab report. We both agree that it's going to be a hard class, and we'll be spending a lot of time on it. She insists that at least half the time be spent at her place. "We don't have much, but I can handle having a guest," she says. "And my brother can have one, too, so Sam can come along."  
  
Peeta's friends who weren't there for the initial kidnapping keep running up to me to see if it's true that he's back in the bakery, and when I tell them that it is, they run over to say hello. Finally, Peeta comes out onto the bakery porch, and is mobbed by everyone he ever met in District Twelve. I can hear them jabbering at him, and keep an eye out to make sure they don't push him too far, but Peeta's always been a social creature and, if anything, he seems to be getting stronger. Cyprian Murphy, who is fourteen and has deeply admired Peeta for years, says, "You should come up to the pub! Second you set foot in the door, I'll get everyone there, and we'll have a party."  
  
"I don't know, Cyp..."  
  
"Seriously, drinks on the house. Or probably on me, actually. And they'll have to be cheap drinks. And legal."  
  
Peeta laughs. "I can buy drinks for everyone these days."  
  
"You can bring Katniss!"  
  
Peeta's smile doesn't waver, but I know his mood lately well enough to know he's putting on an act. "She's not much for crowds. That many people, she'd probably start shooting just to get out."  
  
This gets a laugh, and the boys start asking him what she's "really" like, and if she's a good kisser. I'm about to go over and interrupt -- Peeta can't keep this act up forever -- when Mr. Mellark comes to his rescue. "I know you boys weren't raised in a barn! You don't ask questions like that about a lady. Not to mention that Peeta's still on the clock here."  
  
Peeta gives a helpless shrug, pulls himself to his feet, and hobbles inside. I see him mouth "thanks" to his father as he goes through the door.  
  
He doesn't come back the next day, so I grab my textbooks and head out to the Victors' Village. Peeta is staring glumly at a cake, his decorating tube sitting off to the side. "I can't think of anything to put on it," he says.  
  
"Do you have an order?"  
  
He shakes his head. "Effie Trinket called. Apparently, I really _can't_ have a job. She said that if I wanted to say Dad came up here and we baked together for fun, I could, but I shouldn't look like I'm actually working at the counter. Disturbs the whole life of leisure thing."  
  
"What are you supposed to do with your time?"  
  
"My talent. Leisure things. I've been painting a lot."  
  
"Can I see?"  
  
He shakes his head. "No. I don't think so. It's..." He shrugs. "Just no, okay?"  
  
"Sure." I stir some white frosting aimlessly. "What on earth is Haymitch's talent?"  
  
"Annoying Effie, I think." He pushes aside the frosting and cuts the bare cake. "Cake always tastes better than frosting. Have some."  
  
I take a piece. It's good. "You'll just have to come into town for fun then."  
  
"If I'm going to see anyone, I have to. Turns out there are rules about big bunches of people out on our green. How stupid is that? We have the best park in town here, and five people who can use it."  
  
But he doesn't come into town the next day, or the one after it. I have my first major fight with Ed when I tell him that he needs to go out there. He keeps his promise not to ask again if I'm really in love with Peeta, but he sure implies it, and I scream that I _wish_ Peeta was the Mellark I was in love with, since he at least cares what's happening to other people. I storm out, and an hour later, Ed shows up on my front porch, having realized that I actually said I was in love with him, which I hadn't noticed, either. I decide this is possibly enough reason not to dump him on the spot, though I warn him to never imagine such a stupid thing again and tell him that if he's looking for someone who doesn't care about his brother, he can look elsewhere, no matter what I might or might not feel about him.  
  
Peeta does come to see me on his own finally a few days later, hitching a ride into town on the back of the groundskeeper's cart. It's because of the shoes.  
  
He takes his left shoe off, sits down on a fitting stool and says, "This is stupid. I can't just sit up there in my house because I'm afraid of ripping my shoes." He holds out his prosthetic foot. It's the first time I've seen it. He's been carefully covering it up.  
  
It's not monstrous, though it's obviously fake. It's flesh-colored shaped like a normal foot, and the wiring allows it to work more or less like a normal foot, but it's much more rigid, and the joints aren't covered with anything. It will wear through any soft material very quickly.  
  
I take it and measure it, then shake my head. "I don't know. You might want to go up half a size to give it a little room."  
  
"If it's too loose, it'll twist and I'll fall."  
  
I think about this. "You said the shoes your stylist, um -- "  
  
"Portia."  
  
"Portia, the shoes she gave you. You said they had padding. We could special order some sneakers and things with padding. It would be pricey, but so would replacing your shoes all the time."  
  
"Pricey's not a problem anymore," he says.   
  
"Meantime, go up half a size and put on two or three socks to cushion it." I examine it. "That ought to do it, really. You'll go through a bunch of socks while we're waiting for the new shoes."  
  
Peeta's quiet for a long time, then says, "Thanks for not crying over it when you saw it. My father cried over it. I think he didn't want me to see it, but he couldn't hide it. He just stopped talking and went into the other room and closed the door. So, you know. Thanks for just helping figure it out."  
  
"I thought you were going to lose your head. If it's just your leg, it's a relief as far as I'm concerned."  
  
"You're not the one falling over doorjambs."  
  
"You're here to fall over them."  
  
"You're not going to let me feel sorry for myself, are you?"  
  
I shake my head and call up our supply catalog. For a little while, we look at different kinds of padding. We finally identify the sort that Portia used, and order enough to line several pairs of shoes.  I'll do the work myself.  
  
"Thanks, Delly," he says, then shamefacedly adds, "I kind of miss my leg."  
  
"It was a good leg." I ruffle his hair. "You want to grab some dinner at Murphy's? You know Cyp will get half the town up there for you."  
  
It works. He smiles, and I can see Peeta in there -- my friend Peeta, not the angst-ridden creation of the Games' narrative. "I don't know," he says. "Hanging out at Murphy's with you? People might think I'm hitting on my brother's girl."  
  
"You know about that?"  
  
"Was I not supposed to? He asked if I wanted to go on a double date."  
  
I laugh. I missed that entirely the last time we went to Murphy's. I guess Ed thought about keeping it secret sometime after he told. "Well, you know," I say. "We figured you'd want some time to settle before we sprung that on you."   
  
"Well, I considered the possibility that we'd had a vampire invasion," he says, pointing at my neck.  
  
I blush and put my hands over my face. "You noticed that?"  
  
"That, and that Ed's acting like a human being. Nice work, Delly."  
  
"Your brother loves you."  
  
"Yeah. I know. Turns out they all do. Even Mom, I think. At least as much as she can. Who knew?"  
  
"You did, you dope." I hold out my hand. "Come on. Let's go to Murphy's. Ed should be closing up. We'll grab him on the way."  
  
He winces. "It's a dirt road up there, Delly. Not very steady." He points to the leg.  
  
"Between Ed and me, we'll keep you standing up."  
  
"Promise?"  
  
"Cross my heart."  
  
We leave the shoe store together, Peeta wearing a new pair of sneakers with the left foot padded and packed with whatever I could find. He sways a little on the steps. I steady him. Ed's going through a long closing routine which he will undoubtedly streamline as he gets used to running the place. He tells us to go ahead without him; he'll join us later if he can. Peeta and I go on through the square, where the huge screen has finally been dismantled for the year. He manages the cobblestones slowly, but it's all right. It's a nice warm day, and we aren't in a hurry. The road to Murphy's goes up a steep incline, and it's basically a dirt track. Peeta pales when he sees it, but I don't let him back off. I hold him steady, and slowly, we make our way up the hill.

 

**The End**

 


End file.
